UtaPri Episode 12: WTF, Saotome???!?
Lately, I've been watching Uta No Prince-sama Maji Love 1000%. Plenty of people have been quick to dismiss it from their line-ups, but being the shoujo-lover I am in addition to having the original PSP game on my to-play list once I get my PSP, I gave it a chance. In fact, I more than gave it a chance; I was very much looking forward to seeing this series! The game sounds fantastic, and I'm very open about the fact that when it comes to ani-males, I'm a sucker for a pretty/handsome face, especially when stacked with talent and personality. Therefore I waited impatiently for this, and I watched as soon as I possibly could.
But to avoid stacking one long fangirl rant on top of another, I'll just cut to the thick and say that I like this series! Shachou tells me that compared to the games, it's guilty of some strong OOC-ness from certain characters, and based on what she's told me about the games I can agree on some points, but I've been enjoying it for the most part. This evening I watched episode 12, which is the second to last episode (BOO~), so I wanted to write about it. Here goes!
So, up until this point in UtaPri, it seems like everything is finally coming together for our heroine and her princes. Everyone's got their issues in hand for the most part, and it looks like Tokiya's going to be okay. Saotome has been won over, the boys have found another way to prove their awesomeness, and Haru-chan has earned my eternal respect for being able to focus on writing wonderful music while being distracted by SIX hot guys without falling for any of them, something I don't think I could've done in her place at her age. Wait no, I don't even think I could do that now. XD But good for her; no bias makes the direction this series is going in SO much easier, really it does. @____@
Anyway, I'm not going to do a full-on summary of episodes 1-11 here (saving that for another post), but just know that this is arguably as desirable a place for everyone to be as can be expected from students who go to an idol school. Just in case you forgot where we are. ^ ^
Episode 12 picks up around where we left off in the previous episode, with some flashbacks to remind us that Tokiya has disappeared. The form of this rememberance? A kind of Disney acid-sequence dream segment where Haru-chan is dreaming of Tokiya/Hayato. She's worried about him, since it was pretty obvious that he'd worked himself sick between the two agencies. Judging from the amount of sparkles, she must've been pretty worried to warrant a dream with that acid-y of a sequence. >_<;;
Then once we switched back to seeing how the group was handling the separation, I got the impression that the prevailing feeling of the group was that he was being irresponsible to jeopardize everyone's chances like that by just being M.I.A. for some unknown reason. And I don't blame them for feeling that way; none of them except for Haru-chan knows Tokiya's secret at this point! Therefore, I cannot blame them for having feelings. Each of the remaining five boys reacts to this differently, and I found myself rolling, clapping, giggling, pouting, and making comments to myself in a mix of bad!Japanese and English while watching these reactions.
Like when I saw Otoya, the first thing I thought was "Ahhhhhh... Otoya, why do you look like someone who's just been dumped by your boyfriend???!? THIS DOES NOTHING TO MAKE ME STOP SHIPPING YOU WITH YOUR UBER-HOT ROOMMATE, YOU KNOW." I mean, the way he was looking so forlorn as he stared at his phone... it's like he's waiting for a wayward significant other to come back to him or something like that. But don't take my word for it...
You can see for yourself why I thought what I did. I pray to the anime gods that Otoya never *ever* gets dumped by someone he loves. I'd He'd never get over it. -___-
And teeheehee; Shou-chan is soooooo very nekketsu (at least in the beginning of this episode). XD I LOVE it~ Oh, and let's get it out of the way for anyone who didn't/doesn't know or hasn't figured it out:
HI, MY NAME IS CHRISSIE AND I HAVE A THING FOR NEKKETSU/HOT-HEADED MALE CHARACTERS IN ANIME.
Now you know. :D
See? Don't you just want to dodge his rage and glomp him to shoujo hell and back??? Nekketsu males are usually hot and/or adorable when raging, so although Shou-chan really isn't my favorite of the pretty singing boys, I have to admit that I think he's rather cute when his temper shows up. ^ ^ Which is probably why Nacchan spends so much time fangirling him. XD
So getting back to the episode, the reactions to our missing Tokiya are varied; different personalities will get you different reactions, simple as that. We had two kinds of silence (Nacchan and Ren), Shou-chan's raging, and Otoya's subdued worry (which is odd for him, since he's the token genki guy of the series). Plus, we get Masato's signature calm and logic.
... Did I mention that I now *love* Masato??? Because I do. Seriously. He turned out to be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too sweet for me not to. I would've loved to have a big brother like Masa. ^ ^
Then my face made friends with my palm when I saw Naachan polishing his viola (violin?) bow while he and Shou-chan are having a serious!discussion about Tokiya. My brain went straight into Gutter mode and refused to come out (does it ever??? XD). Natsuki is hands-down my favorite UtaPri character, so I really couldn't help myself. >_> But look at him:
CAN YOU BLAME ME??? Methinks not. ^ ^ I find that I go back and forth between wanting to hug the guy just because he's so flippin' adorable and do other things to/with him that are NSFW, JUST BECAUSE NACCHAN IS *THAT* EFFIN' HOT/AWESOME/ADORKABLE/BADASS/ETC. Yes, it's that bad. >_< And I haven't even gotten into it about Satsuki, but let's not go there, mkay?
Ren also gets rather sharp about Tokiya disappearing (and is quite hot when he's bitchy, believe you me), but you know he cares when you see this:
You don't look this worried/stressed if you don't care about someone. He's another closet sweetheart, and I love him for it as does Shachou, WAY more so than me. ^ ^
And can I just say that the whole scene when Tokiya *does* show up again actually made me tear up??? I mean, way to man up, Tokiya! He took everyone's reprimands bravely, and didn't make excuses; I felt that it was definitely an explanation he gave instead of an excuse. The latter would've been absolutely unforgivable. >_< But the fact that he took the proverbial lashing and still asked them all to forgive his mistakes in not telling them stuff that would affect the entire group for the sake of them all singing together as was meant to be... that made me tear up.
And much ~love~ to Mamo (Mamoru Miyano, who, among others, also voiced Tamaki Suoh in Ouran High School Host Cluband Takuto Tsunashi from Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto, just so you know ^ ^) for doing that entire scene so well. He really did an exceptional job with it. I can't describe it; it's one of those things you *have* to see for yourself.
JUST LOOK AT THAT FACE. JUST LOOK AT IT. My heart melted like butter, and I'm not even *in* the series! Of course, I expected that once everyone saw that Tokiya really did have issues and wasn't trying to sabotage anyone either by accident or on purpose, they'd forgive him, and they did!
.... Well, almost everyone did:
LOL, Shou-chan doesn't give up without a fight! XD But I was so proud/happy watching that scene. And yes, I know I know; I'm such a sap. But that's okay. ^ ^
Then before anyone can do anything else, an impromptu light show popped up! REALLY, A LIGHT SHOW. And not just any light show; this bitch covered the whole CITY.
WTF??? I thought. Gotta be Saotome. Who else is that nuts in this series? But why the light show???
One word: DEBUT. I mean, WOW. Was NOT expecting Shining to spring that on them in that way. But then again, this is coming from the man who calls himself SHINING SAOTOME. With a name like that, ANYTHING is possible. Including debut announcements that involve city-wide light/laser shows.
So happy for the princes, though! After all that crap, they're going to get their chance! And their brains are still (mostly) intact! Eagerly I wait for what that debut is going to mean for episode 13, a.k.a the final episode. Ugh, my heart is cracking just thinking about it. TT-TT
... Of course, there's a twist after the seemingly all-happy development...
Out of the blue, it looks like Haru-chan's out of the picture in this debut, even though she's responsible for bringing the princes to Saotome's attention in the first place. WHY YOU DO THIS, SAOTOME??? I wanted to throw rocks when I saw that, but instead, I was really hoping that Saotome's decision to nix Haru-chan as the boys' songwriter was his way of giving her a cover so that nobody will bother her about her connection with the group...
But you never know with Saotome! My hopes aside, he issued a challenge for Haru-chan to write a song that would beat the leading songwriter that he's threatening her spot with. While I think that it was really messed-up of him to do that to her, my sense of fair play says to give him some credit in that AT LEAST HE GAVE HER A CHANCE. Shining might be hoping to use this as an opportunity to really kick Haru-chan's talents into high-gear so that she'll be able to keep writing songs that only ST☆RISH (the group's name) can sing. With a little luck, that might just be the ticket.
I sincerely hope that Haru-chan will be able to do it! Although, since she's the heroine, it's more like I should be wondering how the producers are going to go about how she does the "impossible" and writes the song. I've been spoiled by hearing from Shachou that there's a debut involved in the next episode (which is the last one!), so I'm assuming that everything will turn out pure roses for our girl and her troupe of wonderfully hot & talented boys.
I hope I'm right, don't you? :D
Boy, that was long. Sorry guys~ I'll see what I can do to make things shorter next time I decide to write about things I'm watching. But I hope it was at least a little amusing if you read it. ^ ^
Until next time~
But to avoid stacking one long fangirl rant on top of another, I'll just cut to the thick and say that I like this series! Shachou tells me that compared to the games, it's guilty of some strong OOC-ness from certain characters, and based on what she's told me about the games I can agree on some points, but I've been enjoying it for the most part. This evening I watched episode 12, which is the second to last episode (BOO~), so I wanted to write about it. Here goes!
So, up until this point in UtaPri, it seems like everything is finally coming together for our heroine and her princes. Everyone's got their issues in hand for the most part, and it looks like Tokiya's going to be okay. Saotome has been won over, the boys have found another way to prove their awesomeness, and Haru-chan has earned my eternal respect for being able to focus on writing wonderful music while being distracted by SIX hot guys without falling for any of them, something I don't think I could've done in her place at her age. Wait no, I don't even think I could do that now. XD But good for her; no bias makes the direction this series is going in SO much easier, really it does. @____@
Anyway, I'm not going to do a full-on summary of episodes 1-11 here (saving that for another post), but just know that this is arguably as desirable a place for everyone to be as can be expected from students who go to an idol school. Just in case you forgot where we are. ^ ^
Episode 12 picks up around where we left off in the previous episode, with some flashbacks to remind us that Tokiya has disappeared. The form of this rememberance? A kind of Disney acid-sequence dream segment where Haru-chan is dreaming of Tokiya/Hayato. She's worried about him, since it was pretty obvious that he'd worked himself sick between the two agencies. Judging from the amount of sparkles, she must've been pretty worried to warrant a dream with that acid-y of a sequence. >_<;;
Then once we switched back to seeing how the group was handling the separation, I got the impression that the prevailing feeling of the group was that he was being irresponsible to jeopardize everyone's chances like that by just being M.I.A. for some unknown reason. And I don't blame them for feeling that way; none of them except for Haru-chan knows Tokiya's secret at this point! Therefore, I cannot blame them for having feelings. Each of the remaining five boys reacts to this differently, and I found myself rolling, clapping, giggling, pouting, and making comments to myself in a mix of bad!Japanese and English while watching these reactions.
Like when I saw Otoya, the first thing I thought was "Ahhhhhh... Otoya, why do you look like someone who's just been dumped by your boyfriend???!? THIS DOES NOTHING TO MAKE ME STOP SHIPPING YOU WITH YOUR UBER-HOT ROOMMATE, YOU KNOW." I mean, the way he was looking so forlorn as he stared at his phone... it's like he's waiting for a wayward significant other to come back to him or something like that. But don't take my word for it...
You can see for yourself why I thought what I did. I pray to the anime gods that Otoya never *ever* gets dumped by someone he loves. I'd He'd never get over it. -___-
And teeheehee; Shou-chan is soooooo very nekketsu (at least in the beginning of this episode). XD I LOVE it~ Oh, and let's get it out of the way for anyone who didn't/doesn't know or hasn't figured it out:
HI, MY NAME IS CHRISSIE AND I HAVE A THING FOR NEKKETSU/HOT-HEADED MALE CHARACTERS IN ANIME.
Now you know. :D
See? Don't you just want to dodge his rage and glomp him to shoujo hell and back??? Nekketsu males are usually hot and/or adorable when raging, so although Shou-chan really isn't my favorite of the pretty singing boys, I have to admit that I think he's rather cute when his temper shows up. ^ ^ Which is probably why Nacchan spends so much time fangirling him. XD
So getting back to the episode, the reactions to our missing Tokiya are varied; different personalities will get you different reactions, simple as that. We had two kinds of silence (Nacchan and Ren), Shou-chan's raging, and Otoya's subdued worry (which is odd for him, since he's the token genki guy of the series). Plus, we get Masato's signature calm and logic.
... Did I mention that I now *love* Masato??? Because I do. Seriously. He turned out to be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too sweet for me not to. I would've loved to have a big brother like Masa. ^ ^
Then my face made friends with my palm when I saw Naachan polishing his viola (violin?) bow while he and Shou-chan are having a serious!discussion about Tokiya. My brain went straight into Gutter mode and refused to come out (does it ever??? XD). Natsuki is hands-down my favorite UtaPri character, so I really couldn't help myself. >_> But look at him:
CAN YOU BLAME ME??? Methinks not. ^ ^ I find that I go back and forth between wanting to hug the guy just because he's so flippin' adorable and do other things to/with him that are NSFW, JUST BECAUSE NACCHAN IS *THAT* EFFIN' HOT/AWESOME/ADORKABLE/BADASS/ETC. Yes, it's that bad. >_< And I haven't even gotten into it about Satsuki, but let's not go there, mkay?
Ren also gets rather sharp about Tokiya disappearing (and is quite hot when he's bitchy, believe you me), but you know he cares when you see this:
You don't look this worried/stressed if you don't care about someone. He's another closet sweetheart, and I love him for it as does Shachou, WAY more so than me. ^ ^
And can I just say that the whole scene when Tokiya *does* show up again actually made me tear up??? I mean, way to man up, Tokiya! He took everyone's reprimands bravely, and didn't make excuses; I felt that it was definitely an explanation he gave instead of an excuse. The latter would've been absolutely unforgivable. >_< But the fact that he took the proverbial lashing and still asked them all to forgive his mistakes in not telling them stuff that would affect the entire group for the sake of them all singing together as was meant to be... that made me tear up.
And much ~love~ to Mamo (Mamoru Miyano, who, among others, also voiced Tamaki Suoh in Ouran High School Host Cluband Takuto Tsunashi from Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto, just so you know ^ ^) for doing that entire scene so well. He really did an exceptional job with it. I can't describe it; it's one of those things you *have* to see for yourself.
JUST LOOK AT THAT FACE. JUST LOOK AT IT. My heart melted like butter, and I'm not even *in* the series! Of course, I expected that once everyone saw that Tokiya really did have issues and wasn't trying to sabotage anyone either by accident or on purpose, they'd forgive him, and they did!
.... Well, almost everyone did:
LOL, Shou-chan doesn't give up without a fight! XD But I was so proud/happy watching that scene. And yes, I know I know; I'm such a sap. But that's okay. ^ ^
Then before anyone can do anything else, an impromptu light show popped up! REALLY, A LIGHT SHOW. And not just any light show; this bitch covered the whole CITY.
WTF??? I thought. Gotta be Saotome. Who else is that nuts in this series? But why the light show???
One word: DEBUT. I mean, WOW. Was NOT expecting Shining to spring that on them in that way. But then again, this is coming from the man who calls himself SHINING SAOTOME. With a name like that, ANYTHING is possible. Including debut announcements that involve city-wide light/laser shows.
So happy for the princes, though! After all that crap, they're going to get their chance! And their brains are still (mostly) intact! Eagerly I wait for what that debut is going to mean for episode 13, a.k.a the final episode. Ugh, my heart is cracking just thinking about it. TT-TT
... Of course, there's a twist after the seemingly all-happy development...
Out of the blue, it looks like Haru-chan's out of the picture in this debut, even though she's responsible for bringing the princes to Saotome's attention in the first place. WHY YOU DO THIS, SAOTOME??? I wanted to throw rocks when I saw that, but instead, I was really hoping that Saotome's decision to nix Haru-chan as the boys' songwriter was his way of giving her a cover so that nobody will bother her about her connection with the group...
But you never know with Saotome! My hopes aside, he issued a challenge for Haru-chan to write a song that would beat the leading songwriter that he's threatening her spot with. While I think that it was really messed-up of him to do that to her, my sense of fair play says to give him some credit in that AT LEAST HE GAVE HER A CHANCE. Shining might be hoping to use this as an opportunity to really kick Haru-chan's talents into high-gear so that she'll be able to keep writing songs that only ST☆RISH (the group's name) can sing. With a little luck, that might just be the ticket.
I sincerely hope that Haru-chan will be able to do it! Although, since she's the heroine, it's more like I should be wondering how the producers are going to go about how she does the "impossible" and writes the song. I've been spoiled by hearing from Shachou that there's a debut involved in the next episode (which is the last one!), so I'm assuming that everything will turn out pure roses for our girl and her troupe of wonderfully hot & talented boys.
I hope I'm right, don't you? :D
Boy, that was long. Sorry guys~ I'll see what I can do to make things shorter next time I decide to write about things I'm watching. But I hope it was at least a little amusing if you read it. ^ ^
Until next time~