[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Welcome to the NHK episode 11: Welcome to the Conspiracy!
Oh dear. Everything seems to be going really wrong now! Misaki decides that her ‘project’ has failed, Satou’s sempai (whose name is now revealed to be Hitomi) is suffering all manner of problems, both professional and personal, and the deadline for Satou’s and Yamazaki’s game unveiling looms. All in all this is a decidedly un-comedic episode.
A number of scenes reveal more of Hitomi’s issues; including work pressures, an unreliable boyfriend and her own drug addiction. There are hints of an ‘offline meeting’ that are dropped in here too but more on that in a bit. One thing that’s clear is it’s taking its toll on her emotionally.
Meanwhile Satou and Yamazaki are having problems of their own but there isn’t much humour to be wrung out of this either. It might have turned out alright for them both had the events that transpired in the ep’s second half not thrown a spanner in the works; how things will go for the ambitious creators is anyone’s guess now.
This episode is mostly about the women in Satou’s life though, namely Hitomi and, to a lesser degree, Misaki. The most worrying thing of all is this ‘offline meeting’: after some more really pleasant flashback scenes Satou decides to accompany Hitomi wherever she wishes to go - he’s aware of how much she needs some support right now but the worst of it is that he doesn’t know what all that entails. Misaki’s reaction to the developments is pretty telling too: is she concerned about losing the project or losing Satou…?
All this bears out my suspicion last time that this stage in the series is a turning point at which the atmosphere becomes much darker and tackles some quite heavy issues. I always await each new episode with great anticipation and watch them ASAP; next time I’ll be sitting down with my usual enthusiasm but I don’t think I’ll be at all cheered by what will happen.
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