'Nobuta wo Produce' Episode Two Overview & Picspam
Ep01
At the rate I write these, it's going to take me forever to finally finish writing up the drama. I finished watching Nobuta wo Produce May 2006, but I love the drama so much that I feel compelled to continue.
The episode opens with scary music and rain, and we find Shuji in his domestic setting, mending the family clothes while watching something about a doll whose hair grows on tv. Shuji's brother introduces him to "mayonaka." Mayonaka is a long-haired woman who stands outside a shrine clutching a doll who looks exactly like her. (Unfortunately, at school, rumors spread that Nobuta is the mayonaka)
I love how we get moments of absurdity, like the tofu-guy thinking that his bald head has sprung a new growth of hair when in reality it's just a sheet of nori (seaweed).
Also, I love the introduction of the theme of individuality when we see that Shuji's father has decided to wear a rather singular costume to work that day against the protests of both his sons.
From the beginning of this episode, we see how Shuji's carefully calculated daily high school routine is interrupted by Akira who meets him in the morning outside his apartment building - and asks "we're best friends," which Shuji quickly denies. Shuji thinks, "being friends with you gives me no merit," - clearly, he's still quite entrenched in his pursuit of high school popularity, and has no concept of what friendship really is.
When Shuji and Akira finally meet with Nobuta to begin "producing" her, Shuji introduces a set of rules (paraphrased):
1. Their producing project is a secret.
2. She cannot refuse an order from the producers
3. She cannot decide to do things on her own (I guess this means they all have to agree before action is taken)
4. The project is over once she becomes popular
5. There is no option to quit the producing project.
The first decision made is to cut Nobuta's hair, which she doesn't really like, so she runs away saying that her hair is cursed. Akira freaks out because he touched Nobuta's cursed hair, and then he touches Shuji, so Shuji freaks out. Silly boys! ;)
We also discover that Shuji and Mariko are an item - Mariko comes to meet him for lunch every day. Shuji uses the time wisely, however, as he enjoys the wonderful meal that Mariko brings for him every day - but on this day, he pumps her for information about the importance of girls' hair. ;) Shuji certainly doesn't waste any opportunities once he decides on a goal!
Akira later learns that the rumors about Nobuta being a mayonaka are true, when he sees her holding a doll that looks like her. Nobuta tells Shuji that the doll was her only friend. Because Nobuta has been through so much with only the doll as a witness, she feels like she can't change and leave the doll behind. So Shuji hits on a terrific plan to have the doll's hair cut as a model for the new improved Nobuta.
However, Nobuta is still not ready to cut her hair - she points out some ugly clothes outside a shop and asks Shuji if he can wear those clothes, because cutting her hair is a really big deal, as big a deal as him wearing ugly clothes would be. Which of course makes Shuji lose it, and in frustration, he walks away from producing because Nobuta can't follow one of the main rules of the project. We see Akira between the two, trying to convince them to wait and reconcile - not the last time that Akira will be the glue in their threesome.
The next scene is silly and cute, in which Shuji is cycling home and see Mariko with her friends. In a panic, he takes his bicycle into a tea shop to hide, but he doesn't know why he's hiding.
When he arrives at home, he finds his father moping in his t-shirt and shorts, while his fancy striped costume from the morning hangs forlornly behind him. His father tells him: "wear what you want now." I think it's interesting that his father tells him this - that once he's older, he'll have to dress for others, for many different reasons, so he should enjoy his youth - but the thing is, Shuji has been doing this all along - everything about his public persona is carefully calculated, so he hasn't actually been enjoying this aspect of his youth. I love that Shuji gives his father permission to wear the crazy costume that Shuji doesn't like to his parent-teacher conference, just to make his dad happy. It's like Shuji is the adult, and his father is the child - total role reversal.
We next see Nobuta being harrassed by the other girls during PE class - at the end of class, she discovers that someone has splashed the word "ugly" in yellow paint all over her uniform, so she skips her next class to try to remove it. Everyone suspects Bando and her gang of painting Nobuta's uniform, but Bando emphatically denies it.
I really love this concerned look that Shuji and Akira exchange when Nobuta doesn't show up for her next class after PE:
When Shuji happens to see Nobuta hiding in a children's playground, he finally hits on an idea to convince her to change her mind - he and Akira buy and wear the ugly clothes Nobuta had pointed out earlier to prove to her that if they could wear those awful clothes in public, that she can cut her hair. Mission accommplished! She's convinced, and they come up with a new plan. Cutting Nobuta's hair is one thing, but she still has a ruined uniform, so Nobuta asks for permission to wear her own clothes in lieu of the disfigured jacket, and her request is granted.
So Shuji hits the books and assembles a variety of magazines to help Nobuta decide what kind of image she wants to project and how she should choose her wardrobe accordingly. The three of them embark on a shopping spree where they assemble a fashionable wardrobe for Nobuta and they also have her hair done in a more stylish cut.
Random: While Shuji is subtly asking Mariko for advice on girl's fashion, they discover that the bookshop owner publishes 100 million yen books under the pseudonym of "Delphine."
The shopping scenes are among my most favorite of the drama. I really feel like this is the first time we see the three of them together in a warm and friendly way. Both Shuji and Akira are like amiable brothers to Nobuta, and I love how physical they are with her - Shuji pulls her along by her arm and Akira rests his hand on her shoulder. They eat a fast-food dinner together like friends and it's all so wonderfully normal that it requires a moment to step back and see this for what it is.
Nobuta has never had this kind of experience before - two people who are genuinely looking out for her interest and who are being really nice to her. While most of us take this for granted in terms of friendship and casual experiences, Nobuta experiences it for the first time with Shuji and Akira. I don't know what Akira's past is like (because we never really know much about his pre-drama inner life), but for Shuji, this is also a beginning for him of having normal friend experiences, even though he doesn't realize it yet.
Shuji: [voiceover] No one in the world has confidence. Everyone's afraid. Really, everyone's so obsessed with themselves that they have no leisure to think of others. So you don't have to be afraid. First, forget about wanting to look good. Let everyone know that you're there.
"Have more confidence," Shuji tells Nobuta before she goes to school with her new clothes, new hair, new look. "Stand straight." "Say 'hi' loudly," Akira says. These are words that Nobuta will have to remember again and again as the drama progresses - it's the advice that is essential for to become who she really is, and to not be afraid of everything all the time.
Shuji: [voiceover] Think about the fact that you're here. Think only that.
I love that after Nobuta's successful first day with her new outfit, that we see Shuji and Akira at Akira's place celebrating together. :) And Shuji looks like he actually wants to be there. :)
Mariko is a smart cookie, as she puts two and two together, and discerns that the questions she answered for Shuji recently about girls, hair, and clothes, seem to have manifested on Nobuta. I love how perceptive Mariko is!
Unfortunately, Shuji & Akira's brilliant plan for Nobuta backfires a little bit when other students begin to purposefullly deface their school uniforms in an attempt to exploit the loophole in the rules that would permit them to wear their own clothes to school. When Catherine, the wonderful assistant principal, twigs onto the students' scheme, she denies them permission which then leads them to complain to their parents about Nobuta's preferential treatment.
But Nobuta's reaction to this is fantastic. Earlier, while leafing through a magazine at home, she had happened to see a photograph of a young boy wearing a t-shirt that she recognized. When her classmates protest that she should not be the only one to wear her own clothes to school, she stands up and volunteers to wear her defaced uniform again. "I'll wear it cool, like when I'm wearing normal clothes," she explains to Shuji later.
She goes on to show him the photograph from the magazine of the young boy. He was wearing an old shirt of hers from elementary school in which her name had been crossed out and substituted with "tick" - she tells Shuji and Akira that the teasing she received at the time had been the worst until that point and she'd wanted to die. She remembers that she threw the shirt away, and somehow it ended up in Africa on a smiling kid. "So you can smile no matter what you wear," Nobuta says. What a smart girl! I want to hug her. :)
The episode ends in the most heart-warming fashion. Shuji and Akira acknowledge that someone out there, one of their classmates, painted "ugly" on Nobuta's uniform, and that despite Nobuta's decision to wear it again, "we can't end this like this," Akira insists. So in the end, in a wonderful display of solidarity, and a terrific attempt to form a trend out of Nobuta's uniform, they paint their trousers to read "show-off" and "stupid."
Sure enough, they start a trend which eventually dies out, as most fads do (which is illustrated amusingly by a scene between Akira and the tofu guy).
In the end, Shuji comes to school for the parent-teacher conference with his father in the strange costume, only to discover that his homeroom teacher is wearing the exact same outfit.
We also see Nobuta practicing her smile and still being bullied by Bando and her cronies while an unknown girl watches with a smirk - we can assume it was this girl who defaced Nobuta's uniform.
Ultimately, this episode is about defining oneself - it begins with Shuji's father trying to assert his own sense of style, moves to Nobuta trying to decide on what kind of image she would like to have, and ends with her deciding to change her own attitude toward her outward appearance in an effort to reclaim it for herself - which leads to that formerly despised image being adopted by her peers. I really love the way it all comes around, and there are wonderful little bits in here that tweak all this, like the unlikely bookseller being this exclusive author, and Shuji's father finding a kindred spirit in Shuji's homeroom teacher (at least in terms of their sense of personal style). And also how the tofu guy wants to be cool and hip, but he's too late - trends are fleeting things that survive for only as long as shifting attention spans grant it importance.
Of course behind all of this, where you might not notice, is the fact that Shuji has already decided on his image to which he unwaveringly adheres despite the fact that it is entirely fake: to play the popular kid and have a fun high school career. (and of course, as the drama continues, this image is challenged again and again)
I think this episode's most significant point is that the true internal image people carry around with them is what must be cultivated, and it is what survives: this is an extremely important lesson for Nobuta, Shuji and Akira to carry with them through the rest of the drama.
Special thanks, as always to dancestar24 at d-addicts for the subtitles.
At the rate I write these, it's going to take me forever to finally finish writing up the drama. I finished watching Nobuta wo Produce May 2006, but I love the drama so much that I feel compelled to continue.
The episode opens with scary music and rain, and we find Shuji in his domestic setting, mending the family clothes while watching something about a doll whose hair grows on tv. Shuji's brother introduces him to "mayonaka." Mayonaka is a long-haired woman who stands outside a shrine clutching a doll who looks exactly like her. (Unfortunately, at school, rumors spread that Nobuta is the mayonaka)
I love how we get moments of absurdity, like the tofu-guy thinking that his bald head has sprung a new growth of hair when in reality it's just a sheet of nori (seaweed).
Also, I love the introduction of the theme of individuality when we see that Shuji's father has decided to wear a rather singular costume to work that day against the protests of both his sons.
From the beginning of this episode, we see how Shuji's carefully calculated daily high school routine is interrupted by Akira who meets him in the morning outside his apartment building - and asks "we're best friends," which Shuji quickly denies. Shuji thinks, "being friends with you gives me no merit," - clearly, he's still quite entrenched in his pursuit of high school popularity, and has no concept of what friendship really is.
When Shuji and Akira finally meet with Nobuta to begin "producing" her, Shuji introduces a set of rules (paraphrased):
1. Their producing project is a secret.
2. She cannot refuse an order from the producers
3. She cannot decide to do things on her own (I guess this means they all have to agree before action is taken)
4. The project is over once she becomes popular
5. There is no option to quit the producing project.
The first decision made is to cut Nobuta's hair, which she doesn't really like, so she runs away saying that her hair is cursed. Akira freaks out because he touched Nobuta's cursed hair, and then he touches Shuji, so Shuji freaks out. Silly boys! ;)
We also discover that Shuji and Mariko are an item - Mariko comes to meet him for lunch every day. Shuji uses the time wisely, however, as he enjoys the wonderful meal that Mariko brings for him every day - but on this day, he pumps her for information about the importance of girls' hair. ;) Shuji certainly doesn't waste any opportunities once he decides on a goal!
Akira later learns that the rumors about Nobuta being a mayonaka are true, when he sees her holding a doll that looks like her. Nobuta tells Shuji that the doll was her only friend. Because Nobuta has been through so much with only the doll as a witness, she feels like she can't change and leave the doll behind. So Shuji hits on a terrific plan to have the doll's hair cut as a model for the new improved Nobuta.
However, Nobuta is still not ready to cut her hair - she points out some ugly clothes outside a shop and asks Shuji if he can wear those clothes, because cutting her hair is a really big deal, as big a deal as him wearing ugly clothes would be. Which of course makes Shuji lose it, and in frustration, he walks away from producing because Nobuta can't follow one of the main rules of the project. We see Akira between the two, trying to convince them to wait and reconcile - not the last time that Akira will be the glue in their threesome.
The next scene is silly and cute, in which Shuji is cycling home and see Mariko with her friends. In a panic, he takes his bicycle into a tea shop to hide, but he doesn't know why he's hiding.
When he arrives at home, he finds his father moping in his t-shirt and shorts, while his fancy striped costume from the morning hangs forlornly behind him. His father tells him: "wear what you want now." I think it's interesting that his father tells him this - that once he's older, he'll have to dress for others, for many different reasons, so he should enjoy his youth - but the thing is, Shuji has been doing this all along - everything about his public persona is carefully calculated, so he hasn't actually been enjoying this aspect of his youth. I love that Shuji gives his father permission to wear the crazy costume that Shuji doesn't like to his parent-teacher conference, just to make his dad happy. It's like Shuji is the adult, and his father is the child - total role reversal.
We next see Nobuta being harrassed by the other girls during PE class - at the end of class, she discovers that someone has splashed the word "ugly" in yellow paint all over her uniform, so she skips her next class to try to remove it. Everyone suspects Bando and her gang of painting Nobuta's uniform, but Bando emphatically denies it.
I really love this concerned look that Shuji and Akira exchange when Nobuta doesn't show up for her next class after PE:
When Shuji happens to see Nobuta hiding in a children's playground, he finally hits on an idea to convince her to change her mind - he and Akira buy and wear the ugly clothes Nobuta had pointed out earlier to prove to her that if they could wear those awful clothes in public, that she can cut her hair. Mission accommplished! She's convinced, and they come up with a new plan. Cutting Nobuta's hair is one thing, but she still has a ruined uniform, so Nobuta asks for permission to wear her own clothes in lieu of the disfigured jacket, and her request is granted.
So Shuji hits the books and assembles a variety of magazines to help Nobuta decide what kind of image she wants to project and how she should choose her wardrobe accordingly. The three of them embark on a shopping spree where they assemble a fashionable wardrobe for Nobuta and they also have her hair done in a more stylish cut.
Random: While Shuji is subtly asking Mariko for advice on girl's fashion, they discover that the bookshop owner publishes 100 million yen books under the pseudonym of "Delphine."
The shopping scenes are among my most favorite of the drama. I really feel like this is the first time we see the three of them together in a warm and friendly way. Both Shuji and Akira are like amiable brothers to Nobuta, and I love how physical they are with her - Shuji pulls her along by her arm and Akira rests his hand on her shoulder. They eat a fast-food dinner together like friends and it's all so wonderfully normal that it requires a moment to step back and see this for what it is.
Nobuta has never had this kind of experience before - two people who are genuinely looking out for her interest and who are being really nice to her. While most of us take this for granted in terms of friendship and casual experiences, Nobuta experiences it for the first time with Shuji and Akira. I don't know what Akira's past is like (because we never really know much about his pre-drama inner life), but for Shuji, this is also a beginning for him of having normal friend experiences, even though he doesn't realize it yet.
Shuji: [voiceover] No one in the world has confidence. Everyone's afraid. Really, everyone's so obsessed with themselves that they have no leisure to think of others. So you don't have to be afraid. First, forget about wanting to look good. Let everyone know that you're there.
"Have more confidence," Shuji tells Nobuta before she goes to school with her new clothes, new hair, new look. "Stand straight." "Say 'hi' loudly," Akira says. These are words that Nobuta will have to remember again and again as the drama progresses - it's the advice that is essential for to become who she really is, and to not be afraid of everything all the time.
Shuji: [voiceover] Think about the fact that you're here. Think only that.
I love that after Nobuta's successful first day with her new outfit, that we see Shuji and Akira at Akira's place celebrating together. :) And Shuji looks like he actually wants to be there. :)
Mariko is a smart cookie, as she puts two and two together, and discerns that the questions she answered for Shuji recently about girls, hair, and clothes, seem to have manifested on Nobuta. I love how perceptive Mariko is!
Unfortunately, Shuji & Akira's brilliant plan for Nobuta backfires a little bit when other students begin to purposefullly deface their school uniforms in an attempt to exploit the loophole in the rules that would permit them to wear their own clothes to school. When Catherine, the wonderful assistant principal, twigs onto the students' scheme, she denies them permission which then leads them to complain to their parents about Nobuta's preferential treatment.
But Nobuta's reaction to this is fantastic. Earlier, while leafing through a magazine at home, she had happened to see a photograph of a young boy wearing a t-shirt that she recognized. When her classmates protest that she should not be the only one to wear her own clothes to school, she stands up and volunteers to wear her defaced uniform again. "I'll wear it cool, like when I'm wearing normal clothes," she explains to Shuji later.
She goes on to show him the photograph from the magazine of the young boy. He was wearing an old shirt of hers from elementary school in which her name had been crossed out and substituted with "tick" - she tells Shuji and Akira that the teasing she received at the time had been the worst until that point and she'd wanted to die. She remembers that she threw the shirt away, and somehow it ended up in Africa on a smiling kid. "So you can smile no matter what you wear," Nobuta says. What a smart girl! I want to hug her. :)
The episode ends in the most heart-warming fashion. Shuji and Akira acknowledge that someone out there, one of their classmates, painted "ugly" on Nobuta's uniform, and that despite Nobuta's decision to wear it again, "we can't end this like this," Akira insists. So in the end, in a wonderful display of solidarity, and a terrific attempt to form a trend out of Nobuta's uniform, they paint their trousers to read "show-off" and "stupid."
Sure enough, they start a trend which eventually dies out, as most fads do (which is illustrated amusingly by a scene between Akira and the tofu guy).
In the end, Shuji comes to school for the parent-teacher conference with his father in the strange costume, only to discover that his homeroom teacher is wearing the exact same outfit.
We also see Nobuta practicing her smile and still being bullied by Bando and her cronies while an unknown girl watches with a smirk - we can assume it was this girl who defaced Nobuta's uniform.
Ultimately, this episode is about defining oneself - it begins with Shuji's father trying to assert his own sense of style, moves to Nobuta trying to decide on what kind of image she would like to have, and ends with her deciding to change her own attitude toward her outward appearance in an effort to reclaim it for herself - which leads to that formerly despised image being adopted by her peers. I really love the way it all comes around, and there are wonderful little bits in here that tweak all this, like the unlikely bookseller being this exclusive author, and Shuji's father finding a kindred spirit in Shuji's homeroom teacher (at least in terms of their sense of personal style). And also how the tofu guy wants to be cool and hip, but he's too late - trends are fleeting things that survive for only as long as shifting attention spans grant it importance.
Of course behind all of this, where you might not notice, is the fact that Shuji has already decided on his image to which he unwaveringly adheres despite the fact that it is entirely fake: to play the popular kid and have a fun high school career. (and of course, as the drama continues, this image is challenged again and again)
I think this episode's most significant point is that the true internal image people carry around with them is what must be cultivated, and it is what survives: this is an extremely important lesson for Nobuta, Shuji and Akira to carry with them through the rest of the drama.
Special thanks, as always to dancestar24 at d-addicts for the subtitles.