Ore wo Suki na no wa Omae Dake ka yo – 11

「俺はいらないかもしれない」 (Ore wa iranai kamo shirenai)
“I May Not Be Needed”

Thanks to the manipulative scheming and vicious betrayals that were commonplace, the first half of OreSuki has really made paranoid. In my great haste and suspicion, it seems like I really did misjudge Tampopo. The ditzy kouhai really did want to help Pansy achieve happiness. And strange as she might be, there’s no doubt her heart is in the right place this time around. But at least my intuitions got something on the mark – Yasuo and the two mystery girls really do share a complicated history with Pansy.

It seems that Yasuo isn’t bad like I thought he would be, other than the fact he’s oblivious to how badly she wants him to stay away from her. Though his encounter with Joro seems a bit too… convenient. So he’s not off my list yet. However, what really rubs me the wrong way are the two mystery girls who follow Yasuo around. While they strive to bring their beloved happiness by bringing him together with the girl he likes, even if it comes at their own expense, they hold absolutely no consideration for Pansy’s feelings. Why force someone who doesn’t love another person together, just because?

He might have done a lot of good for her, with saving the school library being added to his list of achievements, and she acknowledges that too. But it serves to demonstrate the ultimate nice guy fallacy. A guy doing good things for a girl doesn’t entitle him to anything. Most good people do good things without expecting things in return, so why should it be any different here? And I have a strong feeling those two girls were heavily involved in her precious book ‘Kokoro’ becoming ruined – in what I perceive to be a concerted effort to try and destroy Pansy’s feelings for Joro. Only it didn’t work out.

Two possibilities come to mind. Either they’ve been proactively scouting out, stalking and obtaining information about Pansy and Joro for the benefit of an unwitting Yasuo. Or Yasuo’s actually a rotten person who’s been manipulating these two girls to bring about an outcome where he can encounter Pansy and do away with his competitor in Joro. Neither are good at all. But knowing how smart Pansy is, and seeing how she smiled when her book got destroyed, I wonder if she’s got aces hidden up her sleeve – with Sun-chan’s telling smile and declaration of ‘It’s finally my turn’ coming across as some kind of anti-Yasuo scheme to me. I also wouldn’t put it past her to feign weakness in an attempt to get her beloved Joro to behave like a chivalrous knight instead of a golden-hearted asshole.

On a side note, it just occurred to me that Sun, Amatsuyu (rain), Joro (fake hose) and Hose are all important nourishment for flowers – fitting in a series where all the female character names are derived from flowers. I can’t believe it took me so long to realise that, but hey, better late than never. And I’d take a Joro with shorcomings over the perfect Hose any day, despite his conspicuous flaws. To take a concept from Nisemonogatari that very aptly applies to thie situation – ‘The fake is of far greater value, in it’s deliberate attempt to be ‘real’, it’s more real than the real thing’. And to add on a quote from Emiya Shirou, ‘There is no rule stating that the fake cant surpass the original’. Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading this post, and see you next week to discover what Sun-chan’s getting up to and how it plays into the overarching storyline!