First Impressions / Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru

「戦略の結末は修羅場」 (Senryaku no Ketsumatsu wa Shuraba)
“The Result Following a Scheme is a Battlefield”

Hi all! Stilts here. In my ongoing quest to cover all of the shows (and because Zani has been super busy and requested some help), I’m taking care of this week’s OreShura. And as luck would have it, this may be the perfect episode to have me around for. This week it’s all swimsuits and liars, and who better to talk about that than the perverted marketer? Let’s get to it!

Swimsuits & Breasts – I Love the Beach!

Fanservice is a tricky thing. Muscle it in where it doesn’t belong and it’s not only jarring, but it can destroy what would have otherwise been a great story. Good fanservice requires either a delicate touch, or to be completely and utterly shameless. So, how did they do here?

Awesome! Not only did the fanservice not intrude on the story, but it was plentiful, funny at times, and let’s not forget, super friggin’ hot. Am I the only one who keeps forgetting how stacked Himecchi is? Not that I am complaining. Of course, this feat was made easier by the fact that this was a beach episode, and swimsuits are one of the best excuses to toss in fanservice without it interfering with the story. Still, credit where credit is due. This was fanservice at its finest, and I enjoyed it heartily! Also, boobs. Lots of boobs. Good times!

Lost In The Lies

I’ve long had my suspicions about Masuzu, but this episode confirmed them. To me, there are three kinds of liars. First are those who lie pretty frequently but don’t admit it, maintaining that lying is intrinsically bad. They also believe that “white lies” are a thing. These people are delusional, but mostly harmless. Most people fall into this group. Second are those who lie to others deliberately. They can be dangerous or wonderful, depending on the content of their lies – after all, aren’t stories nothing but beautiful, interesting lies? – but I have no real problem with them. Marketer, remember? The third type, though, are the worst of all, and also the saddest – they are the ones who lie to themselves, and there is nothing more tragic than that. Lie to others if you’re willing to take the risk, just never lie to yourself. There’s simply no benefit in it, an it leads to nothing but trouble. Damn, I preach as much as Eita does, don’t I? I’ll take my harem now please.

Case in point, Masuzu. I couldn’t help but feel bad for her when Mana revealed that she was nothing more than a trophy daughter – just well-mannered eye candy who was there to make her father look good. For her father she lied and pretended for so long that she lost herself, forgot who she was beneath all the artifice. I’m reminded of Kokora Connect, only without quite so much forced drama, and to me this is a good thing. It’s less so for Masuzu – it’s hard to love someone who hates themselves, and that’s definitely where she is right now.

The End Game

The real question is, where does the story go from here? It’s possible that Masuzu really will release Eita, but I don’t see it. Or rather, that could happen, but I don’t think the battles will stop even then. I see two options: 1) Masuzu comes clean with her honest feelings and releases Eita, only to pursue him on even ground with the others, or 2) Masuzu comes clean with her honest feelings and does not release Eita, only now their relationship will become less of a lie.

Consider my money on option #2. The funny thing is, I would love to see that happen even though I think Eita should end up with Chiwa! Concerning Chiwa, even though I like some of the other girls better than her, I think she and Eita fit together the best. I mean, he’s becoming a doctor for her! If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. Even so, I like Masuzu, so even if she were to lose Eita I want her to find herself. I want her to come clean and realize that she has love on the brain too – and if not that, at least realize that she likes Eita, and Chiwa and Hime and Ai as well. She may not want a lover yet, but she has friends, and I’d like to see her embrace that – and them – openly and honestly. If that happens…well, fuwa fuwa feelings will abound for Stilts-niinii, lemme tell ya.

Looking Ahead

From the sound of the preview (“Our next super-popular item is our honest feelings”), some amount of guts-spilling will be happening next week. Whether Masuzu will get part of the way to the truth or make the whole leap, I do not know, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Oh, and more Saeko-san too, please. She’s the best!

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – An episode full of swimsuits and liars. I…I love this episode so much, I just may cry #oreshura

Random thoughts:

  • I loved the camera positioning this episode. Why hello there!
  • “Ahn~!” I will never make Yukarin let out a sexy moan. FOREVER ALONE!!
  • Normally I’d harp about how Mana just showing up was convenient, but I’m going to let it slide. There are few storytelling sins I hate more than that, but I’ll always forgive a few transgressions when a story doesn’t depend on contrivances too often. OreShura hasn’t done that, and this one pushed the story forward to what I hope will be a satisfying conclusion, so I’ll allow it.
  • To answer the inevitable question, yes – I totally loved it when the ED began playing before the episode was finished. The more studios that treat OPs and EDs as opportunities to help tell a better story, the happier Stilts will be.

Full-length images: 09, 10, 19.

 

Preview

73 Comments

    2. Yes, you can absolutely love friends, but spending your life pursuing an extremely difficult profession for someone points to something deeper. A really, really, reeeeally close friendship, perhaps, but I think it’s more.

      Stilts
      Reply

      2. Stilts: Whatever binds Eita and Chiwa is certainly genuine care – but from Eita’s side it is NOT romantic love. Chiwa is the picture perfect definition of a friendzoned osananajimi. She’s more family than lover.

        There are more than 2 options. Think at Masuzu’s announcements after receiving the present and Eita’s reaction to Mana’s revelations, and you might be able to predict what’s REALLY going to happen.

        Mentar
        Reply

      4. We’ll see, we’ll see. The smart money is still on Masuzu – that’s certainly where the story is leading us at the moment – but that doesn’t mean she’s the best match for Eita, nor that she’ll be the one he loves when he gets off his “anti-romance” kick. Of course, by the time him and/or Masuzu are ready to even consider a true relationship, that may be different. For now though, I’ll stick with my opinion.

        Stilts
        Reply

      5. Stilts: It’s perfectly fine to stick with your opinion, I just want to give some food for thought.

        On relationships: Emotionally, I’d maintain that Masuzu is Eita’s natural match. Both feel like they are several years older and more mature than the rest. Both started their relationship with a strong aversion against romance. Both are smart and capable, and both carry the same emotional wounds. Then again, emotional similarity doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the best match 😉

        Let’s see what you think after the next episode!

        Mentar
        Reply

      6. I completely agree with ya stilts. What eita is doing for chiwa is not something friends would normally go out of their way for; yes there are friends who will go the extra mile for others but eita has pushed this boundary a step further; he has dedicated his life to reach a goal all for the sake of curing this girl he really cares for, even throwing away his personal life by not allowing himself to love. At that point, dedication such as that teeters right on the brink of romantic love. Anyone in today’s world who heard someone going that far for someone, the first thing they would think would be “damn, you must be in love with this girl or something”.

        sonicsenryaku
        Reply

      7. I see Eita’s view of Chiwa as more of a younger sister. He has no siblings and his parents deserted him. He cooks for her, hangs out with her, but there is no romance there. The desire to be a doctor was one of trying to find something important to do with his life, and what would be more important than to heal your sister?

        Bear
        Reply

    4. What all this talk about Chiwa vs Masuzu, is there no love for Ai-chan?!

      No matter how hopelessly one-sided it may be, i still think that:

      “Ai-chan wins!”

      Especially with how she figured out the situation for why Masuzu would do it, she is after all as Saeko analyzed the one who is most in love with him

      Ryner
      Reply

    5. Oh it’s friendship all right… I think the real question is though why do ANY of the girls stick by this guy at this point? They all have showed their feelings to him, and they all know he knows… yet he’s spent the entire series not only NOT reciprocating, but not even playing dumb about it!

      Eita is simply put, a jerk. He’s been playing all 4 of these girls just so he could play out some old 8th grade fantasies of being the super powered womanizer… and the only thing that changed that was the thought of losing his favorite girl. Now that he’s at risk for losing the one he REALLY wants to be with, NOW he’s going to act… sorry, there is nothing redeeming about Eita.

      Compare him to Kodaka from friend’s club. Kodaka wasn’t unaware of everyone’s attraction, but he was doing his best to ignore it. Not because he wanted to have a harem, but because he truly views everyone there as close friends and not as fantasy fodder. He’s worried he’ll lose all of these friendships if he even acknowledges them! Eita by comparison doesn’t seem to care at all that he’s playing the other girls and that when this is all said and done he’ll likely lose at least some of them in the transition because he didn’t think about their feelings at all the entire time!

      Koji
      Reply

  2. I suppose that I approach watching this anime differently from most people. I see this more as a satire than anything… Perhaps that’s not the best approach now, because quite honestly for a long time I didn’t really care who Eita ended up with so long as it wasn’t Masuzu. Frankly it takes a lot for a manipulative witch to win me over. She hasn’t done much.

    J_the_Man
    Reply

  3. I have to admit that I love when Stilt covers any show. I agree with 99% percent of his take on the episode, but can’t help but disagree with this:

    …even though I think Eita should end up with Chiwa!

    Why? It’s been clear (at least in the show, I haven’t read the LNs) that while Eita is attracted to Himechi’s body, intrigued by the tsundere in Ai and on the early stages of realizing that he is in love with Mazuzu, from the start he has avoided Chiwa’s advances and treated her like a sister.

    IMHO he sees her like family and that is a better bond in this case than romance.

    Eric
    Reply

    1. Mmmmm, perhaps, perhaps. I still think that how they get along (and the fact that he’s becoming a doctor to heal her) are signs of some deeper feelings there.

      Besides, she’s one of the title girls, so by anime law only her and Masuzu have a shot. Too bad, Himecchi and Ai-chan…

      Stilts
      Reply

      1. My top two would be Chiwa and Ai-chan. I was almost pulling for Ai-chan until her love for Eita became more of a childish obsession. I still like her character, though. I think Chiwa is the best girl for Eita mainly for the same reasons as you do Stilts. I’m a sucker for the childhood friends, mainly because they often act as the best complement to the male lead… But for some reason they never get the guy.

        J_the_Man
        Reply

      2. @Stilts
        Eita’s parents were the factor for his anti-love stance, and indirectly caused his promise to Chiwa and that had absolutely nothing to do with romantic feelings for her. As it stands Chiwa has the lowest chance to get him simply because she is just family to him.
        I don’t really want to say more becaus of the chnace of spoiling.

        lama
        Reply

  4. YES! the way they did it there’s NO WAY they can have a 2nd season! YES! YES! YES!

    No, I don’t hate this show (I’ve only purely hated 1 show in my lifetime & I hate it so much that I will never speak or type it’s name, EVER). I just want it to be over – with SOME kind of descent ending. Unfortunately, that means I still have some hope for this mess – that Eita won’t end up spiraling down the worm hole to harem land. I don’t even care who he ends up with, as long as they resolve some of this stuff.

    Megas
    Reply

    1. You know what I always say. If you can’t make a good story try to draw up some decent plot to bring in the views. Same goes for this post. Never really cared a thing about it until i saw the big tits thumbnail.

      Haseo
      Reply

  6. This show is no ordinary harem. The main even debates to choose the ‘fake’ or stay with the harem that will eventually find out about the ‘fake’.

    In addition, it seems like Eita is about to make a choice at the end (applaud) which is a rarity in this genre.

    TSouL
    Reply

  13. Considering the genre, the final winner will be Masuzu by “trope”, just as it was almost a lock in Sakurasou no Pet. Hime and Ai aren’t even in the running realistically, and Chiwa is friendzoned. Eita has only shown any attraction towards Masuzu and really none towards Chiwa. I would like to see some spin on this like I’d like to have seen in Sakurasou, but doesn’t look like there’s a snowball’s chance.

    Bear
    Reply

  14. @Stilts :: Just wanted to thank you for you coverage of this and the other stand-in blogs
    you’ve done. High quality. Thank you again.

    This has turned out to have some good moments for a series of this type – glad I
    stuck with it. Unlike some other series that starts with a ‘K’otora and has kinda
    fell flat, this series has done done a great story telling job without seeming too
    predictable and cliché — good entertainment.

    mac65
    Reply

  15. I have to disagree with you on one thing here Stilts. Masuzu isn’t actually lying to herself, she just simply has no idea how “she” should act as she has pretty much no sense of self. Her whole life has basically been built upon lies and so she reacts to situations by putting on an act to best suit the situation.

    Masuzu, in my opinion, actually falls more into the first example you gave of the types of liars, the only difference being she knows she’s lying but she sees nothing wrong with it as it’s basically what she’s been doing all her life. The only real lying to herself I’ve seen her do is when she has Tsundere reactions to Eita.

    Now that she has people that she enjoys being around, she’s noticing just how horrible of a person she is on comparison. I shouldn’t really say she’s noticing, but she’s finally caring about how much better people they are, because she did call herself a “demon” before.

    Kuntzy
    Reply

    1. Even if she’s not #3, she would be #2 by what you said – she knows she’s lying to others, and is doing it often and deliberately.

      As for your other point, yes she has no sense of self, but I think she’s lying to herself about more than that. About hating love, about how she’s only using Eita, etc…though some of these (and more) might get some resolution next episode, if I were to guess.

      Stilts
      Reply

      1. Eita was her shield against a painful emotion and she´s descovering that her lies are not that at all and she´s trying to cover it up with more lies. That´s why I think she´ll be with him at the end, because she´s creating a new self along with him and that´s scary but next we´ll see the results, can´t hardly wait.

        haseo0408
        Reply

      2. Well, the problem I think with #2 is that she isn’t really deliberately lying (in a sense), but all she really knows is how to lie. She basically just acts in the way she believes people want her to because it’s ingrained into her and might as well be akin to a white lie to her since what people don’t know won’t hurt them. She was pretty much taught “act this way and everything will be fine” after all.

        I said in the post though that the only time I really felt she was lying to herself was her tsundere-ish reactions to Eita. I do believe she was anti-love as she firmly believed no one could possibly love someone such as her, and her speech in the first episode absolutely backed up her hate for love.

        I also believe that she hasn’t actually realized she loves him yet because of the fact that if she doesn’t really know who she is, who can say she understands her own feelings. She most likely writes off her actions as those of someone acting as a girlfriend and doesn’t give it much thought beyond that. This is probably why she was so bothered by what Saeko insinuated because she believed she was doing a perfect job. You can’t really lie about that which you don’t know after all.

        Really, it’s extremely subjective to say she’s lying to herself or not about being anti-love though since the POV of the show is Eita’s after all and we can’t really get her inner thoughts. The way I read your post was you were saying that the lying to herself was tragic and she hated herself for it, however, the only thing I really believe she could be lying to herself about is her loving Eita, which has only really started recently, but she’s hated herself for longer than that.

        Kuntzy
        Reply

      3. I should probably add that a lot of this is simply conjecture based on the hope that Masuzu’s issues are deeper than just “her lying to herself”. She has an interesting character that I feel actually needs to be delved into rather than just taken at face value. This is one of the reasons I’m not a fan of people that call her a “bitch” and just write her off.

        All in all, I’d be pretty disappointed if Yuji Yuji just ends up going with the “she’s just lying to herself” card, it just feels like too easy of a conclusion.

        Kuntzy
        Reply

  17. Forcing your own daughter to lie to herself to the point she breks down her own personsalitie, Masuzu´s father is a true monster!. That´s why of all the girls she will end up with Eita, it´s not just she needs him, she´s descoring parts of her long tought forgotten or destroy or experience feelings she cannot describe, feelings that are actually REAL.

    haseo0408
    Reply

  22. beach time give all good give til eita got troll-suzu’s “melons” then another masuzu plan but not happen cause everyone got club symbol keychain.

    & masuzu going let eita off the hook due to whole eita being chiwa’s doctor give all wonder where masuzu?

    eita had talk masuzu’s sister give reveal masuzu had probs with her dad due to mom issues & be a “jewel” to family yet see cause of eita that masuzu has de-frost so eita on search for masuzu.

    clubt
    Reply

  23. OK, sorry if I offend some…
    I think Masuzu it is.
    Why?
    Because of all people in the world, only such foolish white knight would chose to live with lying, fickle, terrible woman who forced him into the whole “fake pair” mess. The only one who can break with his Burning Fighter (TM) power thru wall of lies and find true Masuzu there. Only one who can make her happy.
    Good luck, both of you liars!
    BTW, I am working on AMV to THIS now…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyE4CLM0QIA

    ewok40k
    Reply

  25. I also agree that Chiwa seems to be the one Eita likes, but I still put my money on Masuzu. I can definitely imagine their relationship panning out and getting more intimate over time.
    Loved this episode! The way Masuzu felt she didn’t deserve the other girls as friends was heartbreaking, but when they gave her the phone charm, the look on Masuzu’s face was priceless; she never thought they would accept her because she couldn’t accept herself, and yet they did anyway. I liked how she decided to compete for their sakes after that, and I just hope everyone can be friends, even if they are rivals.

    Kiria
    Reply

  26. Your words and the speed at which this was up made you seem quite eager of blogging an ep of OreShura Stilts. 🙂

    Also: “In my ongoing quest to cover all of the shows”

    You got this!

    MgMaster
    Reply

  27. I think it’s nice to see her grow. The thing about her being horrible, that’s part of her being herself, even if it is a reactionary aspect to constantly putting up the good girl front It’s something she genuinely hates about herself now that she’s been with these honest people. It’s a shining light that casts a huge shadow on her. She can now only see herself as a vile liar who in the end will just hurt the people around her. Freeing Eita is equivalent to cutting her bonds with him and the rest of the girls in her own view, protecting them from herself. The fact she wants to punish herself by doing the contest, in which she will ultimately fail in front of the honest lovers, is a huge change from the earlier, unapologetic and demonic Masuzu from earlier. The thing is I don’t think Eita is going to have any of that. He’s just now figured out something he liked about Masuzu that wasn’t her face and figure.

    red
    Reply

  29. Masuzu grew up as an ‘accessory’ used by the people she was supposed to love. It became too much and she ran away, but that was the only relationship she knew how to build, so she approached Eita and proceeded to do the same thing again. Eita saw a childhood friend seriously hurt and wanted to help, making a promise he learned was going to be very tough to keep. How hard do you need to study to meet that goal. Is there any place or time where you can slack up and not wonder ‘if I’d just done a bit more…’? I was a ‘C’ student in high school and early college, then found my ‘path’, changed majors and schools, ending up with 4.0/4.0, and 3.87/4.0 in grad school. The cost was 3am studying, no TV, no movies or much outside activity…and I was married….I was doing great, but I had no idea where the line was that I could take a ‘rest’ without having things collapse around me, so I just kept cranking. Damn, I’m glad that’s over!!!!!!! Back on track, Masuzu is learning that people around you can care and not use you, and Eita is learning that caring opens up whole new dimensions (no, not 36-24-36). While ‘the girls’ already like Eita and have him in their hearts, Masuzu and Eita are opening the same new door and finding each other there. That’s why Masuzu wins (this round).

    SmithCB
    Reply

  31. Marathon-ed the anime, and boy am I glad. Thrills, spills, interesting female characters (especially Masuzu and Ai). There’s the feeling the story is missing a little depth though, but for entertainment’s sake, it’s all good with me.

    Not going to get dragged into the ‘why nots’ of who I think Eita should go with, though my favorite is pretty much Masuzu. Chiwa and Ai come a distant second.

    Knowing Eita, he’s probably going to do something totally outrageous again next episode to set up a nice finale. Oh wait, is it the end already for the OreShura anime?

    Owaranai
    Reply

  33. .zanibas.. this is to zanibas.. i have a request for you. please.. please.. do not cover the upcoming ore no imouto anime.. this i respected this anime.. and this i respected the one who covered it in the past “divine” please. just be busy with your thesis or whatsoever.. but please just do not cover any other good anime which can be influenced by your own bias.. please.. just dont cover the upcoming ore no imouto series.. very much appreciated.. and i heard your voice in the podcast.. are you really a boy or a gay??

    geol
    Reply

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