I wish something productive happens in this show too.
Last week on Denki-Gai no Honya-san, a new manga launch sees the staff work to the bone, but Sensei later takes them to a family restaurant to soothe their aching bones, where it’s discovered that Sommelier has a secret crush on Fu Girl. Then at the local variety contest, rival stores end up cheating, making Umanohone come second place.
Summary of Denki-Gai no Honya-San Episode 3
- It’s Christmas, meaning more new manga launches, so Director uses this chance to send the staff out in the freezing snow to advertise. At the Christmas party at Director’s apartment, Hio-tan discovers Director has a kind side to him after all. Then on New Year’s Day, Sensei shows Umio her secret place where she goes when she has writers’ block.
My take
- I’m not quite sure whether to be amazed, or stunned, or entertained, or bored by this week’s Denki-Gai; remember that part in my last Denki-Gai review where I hoped better humor would crop up? Well I turned out to be wrong. I don’t think we’re going to get any change whatsoever: Director will keep on bossing everyone around, Sommelier will keep on saying nothing, Umio and Sensei will keep on at their “will-they-won’t-they” relationship, and more and more random anonymous guys will just herd around everywhere, outside the store and in. I mean this week’s assault on the staff by them on the New Years’ opening day? Dull as dishwater, and a little embarrassing too. We’re meant to laugh, or giggle at the least, but…nothing.
- It might be just me, but Denki-Gai feels like a very different comedy parody show. Taking the manga outside of this equation, a decent otaku parody show would be done mostly by otaku themselves; that way fellow otaku viewers could see their own faults/qualities and laugh at the comedy. Instead Denki-Gai feels like a parody show done mostly (if not entirely by) writers who know precious little about how crazy otaku are. The constant anonymous hoards in the show who constantly assault the staff feels almost…insulting. In addition to this, it doesn’t really seem that there’s not much passion in the staff themselves when it comes to their own knowledge of anime/manga/stuff in that field. I might end up watching 9 more shows like this that turn out to be completely hollow.
- At least all the characters are properly established now; kind of. Kameko is still too much of a mystery. Other than her uncontrollable desire to photograph everything, we know nothing about her. We might know next week, but to be honest, I’m at the point where I don’t care anymore. Umio, Sensei, Hio-tan, Fu Girl and maybe even Director are fine enough for me; everyone else I can just ignore completely. I don’t care anymore about Sommelier and his crush on Fu Girl, and I don’t care whatsoever about Kameko; she’s done pretty much nothing in the entire show so far.
…because you’re otaku, that’s why!
- I’m not in any complete torture like I was whilst watching Glasslip; some of the jokes and moments are quite funny so far, but when they come, they’re gone, and I’ve forgotten them within a minute. I even had to watch this episode a few times just to catch all the jokes. Maybe this is what slow torture is called. If the show gets worse then I’ll answer you guys that.
