Ore wo Suki na no wa Omae Dake ka yo – 03, 04, 05

「あなたに会った」 (Anata ni atta)
“I Was Meeting You”

If people went into OreSuki with the three episode rule, it would be hard to imagine anyone dropping this show, because what it does within that time frame is nothing short of marvelous. The payoff is absolutely immense. The cliffhanger from last episode turns out to be an extremely tall and unforgiving drop. Joro is entrapped in a nightmare scenario, confronted by every person involved and his ulterior motives are laid out bare for all to pick apart.

At first, he plays the victim card and nearly pulls a Houdini. Only Pansy throws a spanner into the works by betraying him – causing Cosmos and Himawari to throw away any modicum of sympathy they originally had. Sun-chan also denounces him with a hefty punch in the face. Socially castigated, and having lost all respectability and friends, his school life takes quite a considerable nosedive. But here’s where the twist comes into play. Expectations are completely toppled, as the schemer becomes the schemed not once, but twice. When she asked Joro to maintain his faith in her, you had to feel that she was up to something.

As it turned out, her ploy was to lower the guard of our true perpetrator – in which the seemingly innocent and cheery Sun-chan is exposed as being an unscrupulous villain who had actively connived Joro’s downfall. By playing Joro’s thirst for Himawari and Cosmos, while exploiting their unrequited feelings towards himself, Sun-chan created and capitalised upon misunderstandings to ruin Joro. All because he couldn’t get over a single instance of unrequited love during middle school, where his crush was into Joro. In no world is that a good friend. And worse still, Sun-chan implied he would sexually assault Pansy, believing no witnesses would be in the vicinity. That there is an utter scumbag who fails as a human.

Even Joro, who’s a jerk with sleazy motives, wouldn’t do something so wrong and at least puts the interest of others before his own when push comes to shove. A trait which wins him Pansy’s affection. And as it turns out, Sun-chan isn’t just some chump with a plain megane fetish. If not for the ED dropping some spoilers, some people might have guessed that there was a beautiful face underneath those glasses. But I’m quite sure no one could have anticipated that Pansy would pack one hell of a bountiful chest, a revelation that blew my socks off. TRACTS OF LAND I SAY. And it’s good to see that this isn’t lost upon Joro, who I view as a kindred spirit for his adoration of oppai.

The moral of the story? Everyone apart from Pansy is a terrible person. I wouldn’t want to be friends with any of them in real life. But fiction remains my escape. Despite the fact I’d judge and avoid these kinds of people in real life, there’s no denying that these kinds of personalities bring considerable entertainment value to the screen. But somehow, Joro thinks it’s worthwhile to make up with everybody, even human trash like Sun-chan. So the show must go on.

「俺がガンバった結果」 (Ore ga ganbatta kekka)
“The Results Of My Hard Work”

「俺にしては、うまくいきすぎてると思ったんだよ。。。。。。」 (Ore ni shite wa, umaku iki sugiteru to omottanda yo……)
“I Thought It Was Working Out to Well for Me”

Just as Joro weathers through the storm, another crisis emerges on the horizon. He is selected to participate as the male lead in a traditional dance, only for his recently redeemed reputation to become tarnished by a slanderous school newspaper editorial. And I don’t think anyone would buy the idea that Asunaro accidentally published the piece. Something reeks of foul play, and you had to feel for Joro when all the friends he’d just finished making up with were forced to distance themselves from him. Though there is an undeniable laugh to be had at his expense, at how people perceive him as being this creepy shoe licking fetishist. And Darth Bench made a resounding return this episode, condemning Joro to misery. Now we might see a Pavlov reaction, where he’ll be conditioned to suffer Vietnam flashbacks at the sight of this bench. Anyway, as for the mastermind, it seems like Asunaro has her finger in the pie. But her motive and why she’d look to make Joro suffer so much is something that has yet to be laid out. Assuming it is her, I hope that Pansy can cook up some exciting magic to wrap off this gnarly situation. Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading my post and see you next week!

Note: I will be covering this show despite delays. I got wrecked by a wifi outage/real life job demands which set me back quite a bit. But I’m back on top of things now, so hopefully everything should be smooth from here on out.