Shitsuren Chocolatier Episode 6

It almost seems like everything I wrote in the last episode actually happened. Somehow it made watching all the less exciting, because I didn't expect it to be this predictable. And things are becoming even more disappointing, because to fulfill the predictions, the story began to veer towards simpler characters and an unrealistic story line again. I wonder if the manga also has this zigzag from reality to ...being a typical manga plot?

Summary

Erena gets dumped. Nicely: Making Kurashina the first character to do an instant personality change. (He was really bland and disinterested and frowny in all the previous episodes, but he was very smiley and nice, he even looked like a different person!) Erena gets over her 1+ year crush in approximately 0.01 seconds. And develops a crush on Souta in just 0.005 seconds after that. Souta, heartened by this outcome, decides to confess to Saeko in hopes of having her reject him and then begin seriously going out with Erena. I like how just a few days ago he was claiming their relationship was completely platonic and they both loved someone else. Progress spree doesn't end here, with Matsuri deciding to date Olivier, pretty much out of nowhere. Ah, and Kaoruko makes up with Souta in 0.0001 seconds after their terrible fight and they go back to acting completely normal. Lastly, Saeko removes her bandages. She has no scar.

Comments


Pop quiz: This show is becoming so disappointing for akamiso, because:

A) am translates the show so she has to think too much about it, any drama you think too much about will seem terrible
B) am writes analyses of each episode, jdrama in general does not hold up well to analyses
C) am is way too picky
D) the show is just that bad

Normally I would just say the show is just that bad and be done with it (no offense, but it's a jdrama. you have to be realistic here) but since it's actually based on an underlying story, I can't say for sure. I'm holding on strong to my claim of not reading the manga after the drama ends (assuming I still will want to have anything at all to do with this series by that time) so I have no way of knowing, which is just a teeny bit frustrating.

From past experiences, it really might be the case that the manga takes a longer time to develop these things, so it makes more sense there. But, really, maybe the mangaka is just that inconsistent. After all, there is a reason why I hadn't ever heard of this manga until the drama. Not all shoujo manga is that good with writing a story. The ones that are, are very obvious by the simple fact they have 200+ chapters (*cough* not naming any names).


Things are just developing so abruptly. Note my use of the word "abrupt" rather than "fast". The actual pacing feels soooooooo slow. There are way, way too many scenes of people, especially Souta, talking to themselves about completely insignificant things, and if that wasn't bad enough, he does his talking SO SLOW. You don't need to take 30 seconds to say 3 words. And then, even when people are talking to each other, for example, that scene with Rikudou and Sekiya (remember I wanted to see more of Rikudou? what I meant was, I want to see him do something cute and relevant. not just lecture Sekiya randomly) it is so unnecessarily long and random with flowery metaphors and blah blah blah I get bored even thinking about it, let alone writing about it.

Why are we filling 30 minutes with this stuff, when we could be portraying things like:

- How Olivier and Matsuri grow closer together. You're a shoujo manga, you're supposed to show people falling in love. This is exactly what bad shoujo manga does, it takes two people that meet and hang around the same place, has them go through a few mundane conversations, and a few chapters later, bam, they're in love. What? How? Why? I usually just assume it's the manga characters being 12 years old or something, but that argument doesn't apply here. Good shoujo mangas (*cough* not naming names) actually show you why and how the characters fall in love so well that you fall in love with them too (I'm not saying that happened to me at all, of course, you know, just speaking theoretically here *cough*)

- Erena falling in love with Souta, rather than instantly deciding that she likes him more than "friends".

- Kaoruko growing into a sensible person, Kaoruko and Sekiya helping each other open up to others and mature.

Is that asking too much? Apparently.


Let's see what exactly Saeko's going to say to Souta's confession. The preview didn't show any hints of it, almost to the point where it makes you wonder if it is actually going to happen next episode? I  was expecting this episode they would have Valentine's day, so maybe it's going to be indefinitely postponed now.

Of course, she's supposed to not reject him (somehow... how can she pull it off?) so he feels confused between her and Erena, but we'll see. I'm open to being proven wrong.

Also, don't think I didn't notice how abruptly Souta went from being a "bad guy" to just being a normal person. What a randomly disappearing story line. So all that fussing around was pretty much for nothing.


To top the disappointment with the story, there were no new exciting sweets at all this time. Although that may not be such a bad thing because I had run out of chocolate last week anyway :) We only have this teaser to keep our desires occupied with. I like the one that he's drawing, but I'm currently in the mood for the one that looks like it's filled with caramel.

They should fill chocolates with honey instead of caramel. That would be mind-blowing.


Instead, we get to see the Classico tomato sauce, which I'm genuinely wondering the role of in a chocolatier kitchen. Seriously. It's not their personal home kitchen. And it's filled with tomato sauce too. What's it doing there???

Also, I didn't know they had Classico sauce in Japan. Pretty amusing to see on a Jdrama. But shame on them for not making their own tomato sauce. It is so easy, so much more healthy, and probably a lot more delicious to make your own. Tsk, tsk, tsk.