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by Luis Reyes |
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Episode 5: Alien and Dried Up Amusements Bath
The clan is back trying to make enough money to make ends meet, and so Kotomi comes up with a scheme to up the image of a bathhouse as a place for social gathering. So, she riffs off an idea that NieA has and bags a host of vintage arcade games and organizes a tournament to attract more customers. Unfortunately, the only people that show up for the tournament are children.
Episode 6: Alien and Rival Hot Spring Bath
A new bathhouse opening in the neighborhood calls the Enohana bathhouse staff to arms, and immediately Kotomi assembles an infiltration force - consisting of Chiaki, Genzo, Mayuko and, unfortunately, NieA - to size up the enemy. It turns out that the bathhouse is owned and operated by Chada, the "Indian" convenience store owner from the third episode, and he has some rather non-traditional, and perhaps some illegal, ways to entice the few potential customers that exist in Enohana. While NieA and Mayuko creep around outside for secrets, Genzo and Chiaki journey inside … and arrive back at the Enohana bathhouse hours later, with slightly elevated personality traits.
Episode 7
An overworked Mayuko chooses, reluctantly, to accept Chiaki's invitation to attend a Go-Con with some college boys in the hopes that a boyfriend might surface. The insecure, homebody Mayuko attempts to look nice, dragging out her version of nice clothes, lamenting her flat, unkempt hair, and trying to build her conversation abilities - with a little destructive criticism from NieA. However, the other girls planning to attend the Go-Con, Chiaki's friends, are vapid, judgemental prisses, and the boys? Well, they will be boys.
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Weakened as it is by the blatant wickedness of its title character and a narrative impulse to contrive for convenience, NieA still shines because of one, infallible element, Mayuko's emotional pain. She is the Japanese everywoman, insecure, overworked, nestled into a classist society where image really does matter. In this light, NieA is not a peripheral imp causing mischief, but is the manifestation of Mayuko's own berating conscious. In fact, following this metaphor beyond the bathhouse, the very presence of aliens in the story seems less an appeal to science fiction geeks and more a thematic tool to emphasize the kind of prejudice that makes people like Mayuko timid, repressed and unable to break out of a cyclical depression.
Perhaps this is reading too much into it, but if I don't, I have to yield to the possibility that the creators are actually trying to create a comedy centered on NieA's outrageous capacity to be cruel (though, even she is a victim of harassment because of her lack of an antennae, an issue that might carry weight later in the series).
The relationship between Chie and her father - getting back to the point - also sags under the weight of an oppressive society. A single parent, Chie's father stumbles through the role of patriarch as Chie picks up the slack. Their loving but poignant connection brings sincerity to the script that it lacks when the story turns to feeding the Otaku imagination.
In the fifth episode, the plot involves a classic video game tournament, the ascension of which makes no sense, as contrived as it is to pit Chie against NieA and Mayuko at the end. And, what self respecting adult would issue such a challenge to the community of Enohana thinking A) that is would attract adults to the bathhouse, and B) that her motley staff could necessarily stomp out all competition. Kotomi just looks like a fool; unfortunate considering the sage advice she imparts to Mayuko at times. By soft pitching scenes like this to the otaku out there, the creators sacrifice the tenderness of the story, betraying the believability of its characters.
However, episode seven's exploration of Mayuko's insecurity makes the whole disc worth it. Mayuko's painful recalcitrance reminds us that this series is really about her.
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