Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san – 06

「センパイ、ちょろ過ぎる～♡ / センパイ！海、行きましょうー！」 (Senpai, Choro Sugiru～♡ / Senpai! Umi, Ikimashou)
“You’re Such a Wimp, Senpai ♥ / Senpai! Let’s Go to the Beach!!”

Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san gets crafty in its sixth episode with an extended dream sequence where Paisen is a wizard that gets overwhelmed by familiar succubi. But in a hopefully lucky twist for the guy, he gets the opportunity to hang out with Nagatoro and her friends at the beach to have a less hostile time than usual.

Although the dream sequence was pretty dragged out and didn’t have the fun factor of being an actual campaign the characters were playing out, there was some fun to be had with the RPG section. There were some fun Abenobashi vibes that I got from the show’s goofy spin on having to survive in an RPG world and face the treachery of otherwise trustworthy characters. I did end up fast-forwarding through many of the battles, but that’s just from isekai fatigue.

Yoshi has been starting to endear herself to me for being the friend group’s devoted hanger-on. She doesn’t have as much of a discernible personality aside from repeating whatever phrase that Gamou or Nagatoro last said that resonates with her. But while it might look sad or lonely with any other character, Yoshi’s bubbly demeanor about it all is kinda adorable. It’s also funny when she ends up stuck in a standstill when Nagatoro wants her to back off or when her friends are fighting and she doesn’t know who to side with anymore until she tries to play peacekeeper so that she can go back to parroting her friends’ banter (“PARROTING >:3”). She also had the funniest moment in the RPG section when she erupts from a dragon egg with a hat that makes her look like an actual Yoshi from the Mario series.

But with the beach section, it ties into my major problem with Paisen where he could achieve some kind of normalcy if he didn’t go out of his way to internalize wanting nothing to do with anyone else. He’s able to have a surprisingly good time at the beach with Gamou and Yoshi, but it took forever because he was tooting his own horn about being a proud loner and painting the “wharf roach” insult on his own back. He even brought his own swimwear but had a stick so far up his keester that he pushed everyone away and made himself look like even more of an avoidant jerk by saying it was “just in case” he felt like humoring Nagatoro with a swim.

This also links towards his constant reminder to Nagatoro that he doesn’t see her in a romantic light. It’s been more abundantly clear recently that this is more than just a friendship, but he’s been constantly trying to keep a friendship out of stubbornness and an unwillingness to read the lines when Nagatoro gets flustered around him. The beginning preview being NTR bait adds to these worries that he’ll just continue to treat Nagatoro like he doesn’t deserve to be around her or that she couldn’t possibly find him to be attractive when she went out of her way to include him. He ends up coming off like an ungrateful jerk when his time to cut himself off from Nagatoro and the girls should’ve happened long ago if he wanted to get them to leave him alone for real. ‘Cause the wishy-washy act is the main reason why it’s easy to mock Paisen when a character like him wouldn’t have to deal with so much disrespect if he didn’t do silly things like wear a swimsuit while insisting he’ll never swim or telling Gamou outright that Nagatoro wanted to cut his hair when she noticed an electric razor.

But I digress, it was still a nice beach episode in the second half. It was actually a huge breath of fresh air that Gamou and Yoshi were actually relieved when Paisen ended up hanging out with them after getting some sunscreen on. It’s also one of the few reminders we get that Nagatoro outclasses everyone in relay races as a member of the Swim Team. Hopefully, with the good time Paisen had in mind, he won’t be so quick to jump to the “we’re not dating and you’re not my girlfriend” shtick he keeps hammering onto Nagatoro whenever she does anything remotely nice for him.