Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai
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MFrontier
Posts: 11138 |
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Her problem with the photo shoot seemed to stem from that she felt very uncomfortable doing what was basically a gravure shoot when she was only in middle school (which is probably pretty depressingly realistic for show business in Japan), on-top of her mother basically forcing her to do it against her wishes. But I do think part of Mai's character is that she enjoys presenting herself as this mature, beautiful, and desirable woman and then we have Sakuta both enamored with and willing to challenge that aspect of her. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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No. On the "who he was" front, he is well-known (or more accurately, infamous) at the school. On the "who he's shouting about" front, memories of her and thus knowledge of who she is has not been entirely obliterated from people; if there's enough of a reminder of who she is, awareness returns and with it all previous knowledge and memories of her. This is established by him forgetting and then remembering her again. Not everything is spelled out to the audience by an Oshino Meme type character, sometimes you have to actually pay attention to what's going on.
Are you familiar with the phrase "there's nothing new under the sun"? All fiction borrows heavily from existing fiction, and has done so for millennia. It's all a matter of updating details and arranging elements in different ways, and has been for a very long time. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5421 Location: Iscandar |
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Like it has happened in previous seasons, a show that was not in my radar becomes my favorite. My favorite thing about Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai is the lead couple so far, but I am very curious about where the story and premise could go.
I honestly don't see much Monogatari in this show. SNAFU is a better comparison. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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No? Guy discovers pretty girl at school has a supernatural problem. She tells him not to get involved, he gets involved anyway, reveals his own experience with a supernatural problem. Guy and girl trade barbed remarks throughout. Guy (helps) solve her supernatural problem, and after it's resolved they're dating. Sure, there is more than a bit of SNAFU about things, but even the supernatural element aside, Sakuta is still more Araragi than Hachiman. Hachiman gets involved because he's told to, Sakuta and Araragi get involved in spite of being told not to. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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^
Let's also not forget the younger sister who also has a supernatural problem as a further Monogatari connection. |
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Angel M Cazares
Posts: 5421 Location: Iscandar |
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On a general level Rascal has done similar things to Monogatari. But we still have not confirmed if the weird things going on in Rascal are indeed supernatural (it could always be entirely psychological), and I am not so sure that Sakuta will run into a dozen of girls in need of saving. I am not interested in fighting. I was just voicing my opinion in my initial post. I will not be upset if Rascal ends up being the next Monogatari. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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Even if it's the case that it's entirely psychological and not actually supernatural (a possibility I've seen brought up a few times but don't see as the most likely scenario), it's still presented as supernatural, which is close enough for thematic purposes. Besides which, there's a reasonably credible theory that nothing in Monogatari is actually supernatural either and it's all metaphors for more mundane problems; it's all embellishment by Araragi, who's something of an Unreliable Narrator as it is. As for running into other girls needing saving, the Encyclopedia here does state "Other heroines who have 'puberty syndrome' start to appear in front of Sakuta."
No fight intended, I'm just responding to your stated opinion with how I see things. |
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Morry
Posts: 756 |
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Who wants to bet he's going to prove he's been time looping by telling Mai about her kissing him when he shouldn't know?
I'm really glad Mai has stayed prominent and wasn't shelved to Busyacting Land. The fact their adorable exchange in making the relationship official has essentially been erased and needs to be put on track was also a great hook for stakes. Same with her just showing up after presumably waiting at home all day for him to give her an excuse for forgive him. I just love their dynamic so much. |
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Dosmundos
Posts: 41 |
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While I immensely enjoyed the first three episodes, after the fourth I can now officially declare it a great show!
It's just wonderful when after having watched so many teen high school romcom drama shows, the characters still come up with actions and reactions that surprise me. After much discussion, bantering and being played with, he gets his girl to become official with him. The next day, it's back to zero (at this time, I don't even need an explanation why he's the only person next to Laplace's Demon to get stuck in Groundhog Day). He has to do it all over again, you wonder how he's going to do it, given his experience from the day before. He simply goes straight for it this time - and it works just as fine! And in the end, she shows up at his place, furiously mad at him, not because of the situation she found himself in, but because he didn't bother to show up with some lame excuse afterwards! Meaning that she has enough confidence in their relationship that she knows that whatever she saw was was not what it looked like. I really don't like all the comparison to Bakemonogatari (although I don't deny the point), but Mei has climbed up some serious steps on my Senjougahara Scale of Best Girl there! |
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Morry
Posts: 756 |
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I saw someone else bring this up, but it's possible the wrinkle in this time loop doesn't actually have to do with her friend's crush, but Sakuta. Hear me out:
1) Sakuta is the only person not ignorant of reliving the past when he was just as susceptible to Mai's syndrome as anyone else. 2) We never see Koga on Day 1 to confirm the exact trigger to her syndrome. Thus, perhaps the love triangle with her friend is incidental to the love triangle with Sakuta and Mai. For example: Day 1: Koga overhears Mai accept Sakuta's confession from outside the room. Day 2: Koga attempts to get bearings and maybe change future when friend's crush stops her and confesses, complicating the matter. Day 3: Koga attempts to hide in room where Mai and Sakuta's confession will take place only for Sakuta to come from the other end and early. Mai gets a misunderstanding and her reciprocation is averted. In other words, she developed a crush on her senpai between the butt-kicking incident and his public confession to Mai during midterms. When she happened to learn it was mutual, she subconsciously wanted to have a retry for her, dragging Koga and Sakuta into a loop where they could change their actions/feelings. Now that Mai and Sakuta haven't started dating, she's now using her friend's situation to try and delay things until Sakuta will fall for her instead. |
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Panino Manino
 Posts: 734 |
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That was my question, why was Sakuta involved. This would explain. |
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Morry
Posts: 756 |
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Yeah, she also claims to not be into popular guys, and you can't get less popular than the school reject who's only recently started getting noticed in a good light thanks to his "cool" confession. Considering Koga makes such a big deal about her personal relationships and not being rejected by others, I can totally see her overblowing a "first crush" that was doomed from the start. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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This is an angle I hadn't considered and would make more sense. We'll see next episode if the theory is borne out.
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4074 |
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I only ever saw the first season of Bakemonogatari and this show isn't that ambitious; The secret to that show is that it was able to whittle down the entire universe to the two main characters of each story and then have their own perspectives clash as they go through the simple action of talking to one another. And that meeting of minds caused the art style to flux so that reaching a conclusion had a physical, almost solidly abstract effect on the world.... cue he scene of swinging a guy around by his own intestines.... but colored pink because it's partly self censored, partly so you don't immediately understand what's happening. I can't call Bunny Sempai all talk because I describe Bakemonogatari as "Talking, the anime" as a compliment so I'll call it a bluff here. Bunny Sempai isn't willing to commit to its premise because it doesn't have a premise of its own... which brings me around to... Episode 4. One time skip followed by time loops... which is the greater coincidence, that Mai would just happen to return Sakuta's feelings on the same day that gets looped after 29 days of saying no or Futaba quickly placing four balls on a table and hitting one of them with her finger so that each ball hits the next ball squarely dead center with enough force to the same to the next? LaPlace's demon is Futaba. So, wait, what? Edit: Oh, it's a matter of shared states: All three have unrequited love confession problems... |
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Morry
Posts: 756 |
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What I think I appreciate most about episode 5 is that old Sakuta would never have put himself out to defend someone against the "atmosphere". And he realizes it too considering his talk about "what ifs" and Koga being a fill-in for his sister. Falling for Mai has pushed him to be the person he wished he was when his sister was suffering.
The one question I have is why he didn't call Mai back. I get the feeling that might bite him. |
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