OreShura Episode 12: Clichés and Fanservice Go Hand-In-Hand, right?

It’s rather depressing that the token beach episode has been the break OreShura’s needed to move things forwards. It’s about as typical of a beach episode as you can get: melons, swimsuits, sandcastles and swimsuits with melons. Despite this, its efforts on characterising Masuzu, something it needed to do yonks ago, help redeem itself after stagnation for much of the series.

That said, it’s a pain that stuff only really kicks in the latter half of the episode. It’s a train ride of clichés to begin with, more or less literally. Let’s begin with the err, well train ride. It makes a quite frankly poor effort on playing on the new suspicions of this feigned romance. It seems now the pressure is on, they’re actually forcing an act now, despite being relatively natural before. At least this section is intentionally clichéd but it stupefies Eita and Masuzu at the expense of this pretty poor joke. Perhaps they were aware with how fast the scene was deteriorating, because I really liked the OP very abruptly cuts them off, props for that, that’s kind of original.

After this though, it’s by the books slice-of-life beach episode. At best, the only point where someone stood out to not play into the meta was when Hime made a sudden reversion into chunni mode — phased eyes, nonchalant spewing of nonsense followed by a sober yet disturbing chortle. Props to the sea though. I’m liking the directing here, since it’s like it has the automatic cut-off stabilizers. Ai shares heart-shaped shell, Eita couldn’t care less, Ai runs off upset. Asides from Eita being uncharacteristically harsh, it’s nothing overly unusual. Then a tidal wave swoops in to get Ai off the fucking screen already. Why couldn’t there have been an avalanche a few episodes back on the hill doing the same thing? That’s a running joke I’d get behind, although might strike a bit of a discord with the audience given Japan’s greater tendency to get natural disasters than good ol’ Blighty — a modest layer of snow is what constitutes one of those over here.

So what next? A meal. What next? Boobs. Yep. Pretty much a montage of boob shots, ‘cos ya know, it’s the beach. Crack a melon open with yer head, they tell him. I like how pretty much knows that’s not what it’s really about, at no point is Eita surprised that instead of bashing a melon open with his skull, he’s dived into Masuzu’s chest. I guess his willingness to go with it is understandable but the man is supposedly wanting to avoid these sort of actions. Masuzu’s just as bad, even if she’s doing it troll the others or convince them of their relationship it’s still against their ethos. Yep, so basically complete fanservice for the sake of it.

So not content with their fondling in public is convincing enough that they’re in a relationship, they take great consideration in brooding over their next move. Their big plan: a highly calculated-timed kiss. But of course, this is real big stuff now. Masuzu doesn’t even sound confident in her brilliant plan herself given that she’s gotten soft and giving Eita a chance to back out consequence free. Blimey, ain’t she a saint?

I think it’s this part after the bath scene where it turns things around though. Playing a typical card game but with greater things on their minds, their plan is shattered when they’re overcome by this strange aspect called friendship; Masuzu is so surprised that her love rivals would actually get her gift or rather actually even think of doing something pleasant for her that she’s almost moved to tears. I think this subtly characterises her quite well, she’s clearly not used to having friends and doesn’t know how to respond to kindness. She gets depressed that she’s not capable of being the same, doing something caring for others. Understandable yet the lackadaisical change from groping in the earlier half of the episode to this undermines her muchly.

At this point it’s looking like she’s going to just let Eita go. She herself thinks he’s made for Chiwa and it’ll be interesting to see which of the two her ultimately chooses (if he does at all…) as Masuzu is just as broken as Chiwa and Eita is geared up to be the only person who can save them, albeit one is a physical issue, the other is psychological. The biggest surprise of this episode was of all people, it was Masuzu’s bloody imouto who came along to illustrate this.

She’s learnt how to make an entrance too. Taking on the typical cliché of speeding on a bicycle but the guy can’t quite get out the way, I love the irony in how much worse it would have ended if he hadn’t been their to cushion the blow. Now, my steaming rage towards her before would have welcomed her going plummeting over the handle bars, down the bank but now she’s got style. Just though, girigiri. Let’s be fair, it’s partially because somehow Eita is now a fantastic foil to her. I’m pretty sure I almost spewed my drink when he cried “BWRRRRRRWRRRAH”. She somehow brings out his inner pedo too, his hand on her ass, his arse poking out his shorts, not to mention relishing in her insults. What better setup for a deep conversation could you need?

Back down the rocky road of clichés again though, Masuzu’s got all these first world problems: so much money, so much talent yet not quite the doting daddy bringing her up. It’s rather vague what really happened, but we can tell she got fed up with the pressure. It also starts veer down into Kokoro Connect’s alley… Masuzu apparently started pandering so much to people’s’ expectations she lost her own sense of personality? OreShura, you’re late again. Maybe in time, I’ll get to say the same thing in how something feels like it’s copying OreShura, that’d be deeply ironic. Imouto herself seems a little down that no one ever really expected much out of her although she’s considerate enough not to make this about her (looking at you Ai) which adds to her character actually. Imouto has graduated from a plot device to a full character, at least by slice of life standards. Good on her. The odd thing is, Eita seems more honest with her than he does with anyone else. When she thanks him for coming to love Masuzu, it appears that Eita accepts that too. She did a good job of justifying why Eita is a good match for Masuzu, as if the series itself didn’t already have prowess in demonstrating that.

So, now it’s down to the all exciting finale right? I’m not overly hyped. OreShura disappointed, it straddled about way too much. It’s certainly had its moments, but right now its story is incoherent. It couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Hopefully the episode will continue with the standard this one left off on though. It’s stepped its game up. It’s fleshing out its characters and developing a bit more meaning behind the relationships. My major worry will be that the contest which I assumed would be this episode is going to have far more significance than it really should. I’m also feeling that any sudden genuine commitment is going to feel to abrupt now, especially if it’s with Chiwa since she’s only ever just ‘there’, gibbering on about something irrelevant. OreShura needs a bit more time for an above satisfactory ending, time which it squandered on going nowhere with Ai’s arc.

Tags: Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru

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