Genshiken ep.5

November 16, 2004 | 2 Comments

This episode confirms my guess that Saki is indeed one of the more important characters in the story. In fact, I'd say that her importance in this series either ties with Sasahara, or even higher than his. After these two, Madarame is probably the next character that appears on the importance scale. Unfortunately, much to my disappointment Kousaka is not utilised effectively in this series. I mean he's there most of the time, but he mostly serves as Saki's foil instead of as a full-fledged character whose thoughts and opinion is taken more seriously. In fact, most of the characters in the series actually see him as someone strange because he doesn't fit either side of the pigeon-holes. However, the fact that he doesn't fit the mould is what makes him interesting. So I wish they'll explore his character a bit more in the future.

The episode begins with Sasahara reading a notice on a board about the closure of several school groups, one of which is Genshiken. When Sasahara eventually meets the rest of the guys, he finds out that Genshiken is being closed down because they haven't held any activities at all. Everyone in the group is depressed about it but seems to have reached the 'acceptance stage'. Actually, 'everyone' is not the correct word because just like in real life, other people's misery sometimes means one person's happiness. In this case, Saki can't help but smiling happily upon hearing the news. To make things worse, Haraguchi then comes in and gloats about it while trying to recruit Kousaka into Manken. For some reason, however, Saki is pissed off with Haraguchi's attitude and suddenly tells the guys that they should not give up on Genshiken just yet. So she takes Kanako with her and then marches into the student government office, demanding explanation.

Upon getting there, harsh explanation is exactly what she gets from Kitagawa, the vice-chairman. She tells Saki that Genshiken has misused their room and since there are many new groups that need a meeting space, Genshiken must be kicked out. Despite this, Saki is not willing to give up yet. So the next day, she marches right back to the student government office, armed with a piece of information she receives from Genshiken Iincho about Kitagawa's itchy foot problem. Saki then uses the information to blackmail Kitagawa. Unfortunately for Saki, the Chairman then comes and tells Kitagawa that he likes Kitagawa so he doesn't care even if she has itchy feet. So Kitagawa is back to her scary self but never the less allows Genshiken to resubmit their activity plan and not closing the group just yet. The episode ends with Saki being blackmailed by Genshiken Iincho regarding her steamy encounter with Kousaka inside the room. So she has no choice but to officially join Genshiken to keep the secret safe.

Impression:

Well, what goes around comes around, I supposed. It's amusing to see Saki blackmailing Kitagawa and then ends up being blackmailed at the end of the episode. But it looks like she has developed some kind of attachment to the Genshiken members to the point that Haraguchi's taunting pisses her off and makes her enthusiastic about saving Genshiken. What's interesting here, however, is the attitude of the Genshiken otaku. I find it hard to believe that they'll just give up and resign to their fate and leave it to someone, who's not even a member, to deal with the problem. It's strange to me because they can be so persistent in other episodes such as when they were willing to queue for hours or suffer horrible pain, in Madarame's case, just to obtain something that they want. To me this seems like a way to feature Saki in a more flattering light. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what happens now that Saki is an official member of Genshiken. I hope it won't affect her volatile reactions to the other members of the group too much.

© memento 2003