Friday 19 April 2013

My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU - Episode 3 (Dropped)

Try as he might to play tennis (well, if you can count hitting a ball against a wall "playing tennis") during gym class, it seems that Hikigaya simply won't be left alone, which drags him into another of those youthful "adventures" that he hates so much.

His problem comes courtesy of a friend of Yui's named Sai, a rather feminine looking tennis player and member of the school's tennis club who is looking to do whatever he can to improve.  Although Hikigaya isn't particularly interested in helping out, once Sai puts his request to the Volunteers Club he effectively has no choice but to offer his assistance.


One training montage scene later, conflict arises when a dispute breaks out over the right to use the tennis courts between Hikigaya and company and Yumiko and her boyfriend Hayato.  There's only one way to solve this conflict and that is, of course, to have a tennis match to decide who's in the right - a match which sees Yui pick up an injury, leaving Yukino to step in and bring the group to the bring of saving the day before  allowing Hikki to work his particular magic - not that it gets him any plaudits, mind you...

For a show that loves to poke fun at the generic romantic comedy and depictions of the wonders of youth, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU sure is... well, incredibly generic.  There were absolutely zero original ideas or even moments of interest in an episode that felt like a piece of IKEA furniture built by monkeys - there was no doubt as to what it was, but everything about it was ill-fitting, clumsily assembled and ultimately not really fit for purpose.  It seems like there's really no way out for this series at this point - its cast is dull, and the bright possibilities of its premise and characters seem to have been entirely ignored, leaving us with perhaps the season's most mediocre series (that I've watched at least).  Sometimes, mediocrity is even less enjoyable than watching something painfully bad, so rather than subjecting myself to more instalments of excruciating nothingness, this show is headed for the "dropped" pile.

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