「駄菓子じゃねえか!」 (Dagashi Janei ka!)
“That’s Candy!”

Not enough, too heavily foreshadowed.

When Foreshadowing Doesn’t Work

When foreshadowing works, it’s a really cool feeling. We see something early on, and we might not even recognize it as foreshadowing at the time, but it later all comes together, and you get this feeling of, “Wow … this author really does know what she’s doing. Cool.” In dramas, foreshadowing is a great way to raise the tension, promote mystery, and make the crises or conclusion not feel like it’s yanked our of the author’s derrière.

But this isn’t a drama, is it?

They foreshadowed Hotaru’s mouth ulcer last episode, so when she was under the weather this time, I instantly assumed that’s what it was. All surprise thereby destroyed, the rest of the episode just sort of happened. Sure, there were good parts—Hotaru’s house, her freaking out when she saw Coconutsu, him tempting her with candy—but it lacked punch. Then again, I’m unconvinced that it would have been better without the foreshadowing. The underlying skit just wasn’t all that strong, and it lasted too long; this was an odd episode to decide to go from two skits down to one. There’s always a risk with pure comedies, that if a specific bit doesn’t work, it’s effectively a waste of time, but having two shots an episode was nice. Here they took one shot, and it didn’t much work. Feh.

Not much else to say on this one. It was an overlong skit that didn’t work for me. Better luck next week.

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Hotaru’s mouth ulcer has gotten out of control because Hotaru is a candy baka. Sounds right #dagashi_anime 10

Random thoughts:

  • I can’t be the only one who thought Hotaru was acting awfully otome-like when she kept freaking out at the sight of Coconutsu. Doesn’t want the boy she likes to see her like that? Well, no. It’s Hotaru-san, after all.
  • I’d pick Saya-chan over candy too.

My first novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, is available now. (More info—now in paperback!) Sign up for my email list for a FREE sequel novella. Over at stephenwgee.com, the last four posts: Inside Out: What Emotion Drives You?, Superhot: Storytelling through gameplay, Deadpool: Tonal Balance Through Non-Linear Storytelling, and Through their own flaws.

 

Preview

18 Comments

  1. While it’s possible to mix different powdered fruit juice flavors (e.g.: mango-orange or orange-pineapple to name a few), you just do not mix powdered fruit juice/s with cola (even if it’s just a powdered drink flavored like cola). The fizz of cola makes a mess of it.

    And here I thought Hotaru was depressed because she missed eating the new flavor of Baby Star Ramen on release day… Thanks to her (worsened) mouth ulcer, she probably will.

    Incognito
    1. Not really, while there is some swelling if the ulcer is particularly large, for the most part most people wont notice something is wrong unless you tell them. Eating spicy food or anything particularly strong cant agitate it as it is ultimately an open wound in your mouth, but you wont get anything like hotaru has simply becaus if it was that large in real life thats hospital time right there.

      Helios
    2. No, that’s just an exaggeration. I get them all the time from stress or accidentally biting myself. It’s unnoticeable unless you’re eating with the other person and it’s painful to eat.

      FlayvorOfEvil
    3. In keeping up with the previous post: That happened because she swallowed a lot of sweet Deez Nutz with solid sugary boners and bad boner juice. What she need is the meaty Deez Nutz with the pulsing boners and white salty cream filling.

      GP1301
  2. Yeah, this was probably one of the weakest episodes so far. The bit went on for too long and it contained neither enough gags nor the usual brand of candy trivia, so I found myself losing interest in the ep as it went along (which never happened before). They can’t all be winners, I suppose.

    Though the powdered juices bring up memories from my past, from when I was really young. Man, I haven’t seen those things in, like, twenty years. Now I gotta wrack my brain in thinking up the specifics. Suppose I should give the show credit for the mental exercise, if nothing else.

    Dvalinn
    1. I tend to not put much stock into what source readers think, admittedly. I think it’s fine for an adaptation to not be entirely faithful, and for it to show a different facet of the story, as long as that story is also good. I will admit that this one has felt pretty lopsided though, like the director/writers don’t entirely understand what to do with Hotaru, so the only time they can really knock it out of the park is when they focus on Saya. That’s become increasingly clear lately.

      That said, I’m not surprised that Hotaru is the favorite. She’s the manic pixie dream girl. They’re supposed to be objects of fascination to the reader/main character. That’s what she do. Her being an uber candy otaku does elevate her above being only a manic pixie dream girl, fortunately.

    2. Ya know, that situation reminds me of the anime adaptation of Hataraku Maou-sama. The director for that show apparently liked Chiho so much he gave her more screentime and fanservice shots (hehe…bewbs…) compared to Emi.

      Makes me wonder if the anime director for Dagashi Kashi is the same guy… (Or best buds with the anime director of Hataraku Maou-sama.)

      Incognito
      1. Much like Hataraku, it also doesn’t seem to really work since the female character they were trying to play down is still pretty popular. In fact I think that Saya x Hotaru might be a more popular pairing than ones involving Coconuts.

        Grant
  3. Personally I had a completely different reaction. I liked it because it tried to do more to use the characters instead of the usual focus recent episodes have had with just having them like snacks. The mystery doesn’t work though and the middle where Coconuts keeps trying to tempt Hotaru, Hotaru keeps grabbing Saya’s arm and Saya keeps sitting there awkwardly does go on past where it stops being funny I’ll admit.

    Grant

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