SEASONAL PRATTLE
Associating with a character’s drama naturally demands moving beyond yourself, and understanding someone’s own lived experiences and resulting perspective even if it’s mostly foreign to you. It’s a tough task for creatives in the industry to tackle; There’s only so much run time in a series to close the distance between characters and audience effectively, and multiple constraints both tangible and intangible to solve in order to do it. Be that as it may, Wonder Egg Priority’s seventh installment was more than up to this challenge and deserves plenty of credit in the way they pulled it off.
This week’s content is largely Rika based, and while she isn’t the most subtly sketched of the group, her distinct insecurities still make for an entertaining character portrait to explore. Her world is essentially an ever swirling whirlpool of parental stress, loose facades and the high capacity for self sabotage – constantly putting her in states of needing to be understood just as much as she needs to understand the circumstances and people around her. And this is framed elegantly as Seven is loaded with plenty of little directorial quirks, insightful dialogue choices, and expressive character acting to elevate it into something visceral – inevitably boiling down to another resounding use of the egg victims’ plight to further extend characterization and wrap things up with a fitting bow.
Reality can be rough, and there’s no instant cure for that. Please take care of yourself, positively manage your life’s difficulties, and build happiness where you can.
Horimiya (8)
“Better contributors comedically than the series has had in quite some time”
After showing us maturity, Horimiya follows up with a more immature touch – exhibiting a sillier episode that makes for a rather satisfying watch as it finds a nice balance between effective comedy and pleasing romantics. Sengoku and Remi’s material this week is arguably the show’s best handling of a side relationship yet; It’s honest in presentation to the extent that their feelings land as genuine with little effort, and the entire bit is long enough to avoid the pitfall of coming across as too condensed that a good chunk of similar segments has fallen prey to lately. Piling on, violent Miyamura, masochist Hori and Ishikawa’s “pretend boyfriend” scenarios all reinforce this episode’s trend of good execution and satisfaction – being better contributors comedically than the series has had in quite some time. Horimiya has had its rough patches, especially when it comes to how it packages and administers material, but I’m happy to say today really isn’t one of them.
Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun (8)
“Echoes the same mild messaging as last week and nothing more”
Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun appears to be sinking into an unremarkable neutral, offering an eighth episode that pretty much echoes the same mild messaging as last week and nothing more. With that said, Eight’s dramatic conflict is once again completely occupied with Minami’s inferiority, and thus, this episode feels like twenty minutes of rehammering the same piece of characterization that didn’t have too much substance behind it in the first place. It makes for a weightless performance and another deviation from this show’s root gimmick – peaking in its departure as Tomozaki is basically acting as a secondary character in his own show at this point.
