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Welcome to the NHK! – 9 – Sparkling festival fireworks

An unusually positive and uplifting instalment of NHK!, I wasn’t planning on commenting on this episode but the sparkling festival fireworks always get me. So bright, so beautiful, so romantic. Even Yamazaki gets some lovin’.
This is so far the best episode, a dizzy mixture of jilted love and romantic despair, it astutly comments on the fickle defensiveness of macho human nature. Yamazaki had his heart broken by his first love and subsequently hates girls, but the moment he gets a little female attention again, suddenly all that pent up anger just fades. Or drops, like the mask covering his real face.
That Sato and Misaki finally get it together is very much the expected outcome of their growing relationship, but it’s still a heart warming and effortlessly touching moment, seeing two people so clearly confused and unconfident gradually throwing aside their fears all in the name of “love”. Such an overblown sentiment is always accompained by fireworks, the pretty mutli-coloured fireworks.
(Note: Instead of screen capping this episode, I’ve clipped pictures from the opening theme. I love the song “Puzzle”, a happy, hopeful and uplifting tune perfectly complimented by the opening animation’s attractive onslaught of bright and exciting colours. I’m gradually realising this is my favourite show airing at the moment, I haven’t read the manga and probably won’t, but really, this is a great series with an underplayed and wonderful grasp of human nature.)

2 replies on “Welcome to the NHK! – 9 – Sparkling festival fireworks”

Ah, good old feelgood romantic comedy to brighten a cold, dark evening! The pace slackens a bit in this episode but as long as it’s as entertaining as this I don’t see it being a problem, for the time being at least.
The soundtrack is still one of the series’ highlights though – the way in which the opening and closing songs offer such contrasting takes on the overall theme is a great idea that works well. They couldn’t be more different in style but work in their own way.

I really hope you’ll continue blogging this series. I don’t know if you’ve yet had the opportunity to see episodes 10 and 11, but they’re great (as the rest of the series has been). Even moreso than Ergo Proxy, which I feel has gone too far in its attempt to not fit any sort of "mainstream mold," Welcome to the NHK! is the best series of the past season. Its characters have real personality (we can empathise with them), and there is real progress (the plot isn’t stagnant, or as is the case with so many other series – non-existent). I’m glad that at least someone has been blogging this – NHK! deserves all the attention it gets.

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