Real Girl

Episode 4

Tsutsui and Iroha continue trying to understand their new relationship this week, but unfortunately the arrival of a new character sidetracks that process. Mitsuya Takanashi, the school's resident Hot Guy, calls Tsutsui out for a heated discussion. It turns out that Takanashi has a crush on Iroha, and he can't imagine why she'd reject him in favor of a scrawny otaku like Tsutsui. Not content with merely clobbering Tsutsui, Takanashi drafts his little sister into a dastardly plan to make everyone think that our antisocial hero tried to kidnap a young girl. That's right, folks, it's time for a good old-fashioned “someone spreads rumors about the protagonist” plot!

The good news is that the dynamic between Tsutsui and Iroha remains compelling. Tsutsui's imagined conversation with his anime idol Ezomichi is an amusing way to start off this episode, and it also speaks to a defining part of his perspective. Having spent most of his youth as a social outcast, Tsutsui is burdened by the dual concerns that he has nothing to offer Iroha and that trying to take another step forward in their relationship will trigger some kind of cosmic greed sensor and cause divine retribution to rain down on his head. This helps explain why he jumps at the chance to help her study (it's an easy and obvious way for him to “do something” for Iroha), and why any advance he makes toward her inevitably involves plenty of hesitation and backpedaling. For her part, Iroha seems mainly concerned about making sure the two of them are on the same page about their relationship, but as usual we spend far less time in her head than we do in his.

That awkward but well-intentioned process of two people trying to understand one another is the core of Real Girl's appeal, so it's unfortunate that Takanashi's arrival takes this episode in a completely different direction. As romantic rivals go, the guy doesn't exactly make a strong case for himself. The fake love letter he uses to draw Tsutsui out is needlessly underhanded for a presumably popular and influential person, and their initial conversation suggests that he views romantic partners as something that can be possessed and exchanged between people. Then he beats the crap out of Tsutsui, tricks his own sister into helping with an impulsive plan to frame Tsutsui for a serious crime, and acts like a whiny crybaby when Iroha still won't give him the time of day. If the goal is to paint Takanashi as an unlikable character, then all of this is total overkill. He comes across as so irredeemably scummy that the dramatic tension in this storyline rings hollow. Takanashi feels like a caricature of a villain instead of an actual antagonist, long on cartoonish malice and short on anything resembling charisma. It's just too hard to believe that he could ever prevail, and because he's so obviously being set up for a fall, there's no dramatic urgency or impact to his scheme. At this point, the audience just has to patiently wait until the other shoe drops.

In the meantime, the rumors force Tsutsui and Iroha to double back through familiar territory. The central question of this current conflict is whether or not Iroha will stay with Tsutsui now that Takanashi has made him into a pariah, but that question has essentially been answered already. Tsutsui's status as a social outcast isn't anything new, and Iroha has clearly decided that she likes him regardless of how anyone else feels. Having Tsutsui's classmates ostracize him even further as a result of the rumor just doubles down on an existing conflict without adding anything new to the conversation, especially since Iroha is smart enough to recognize that the rumors are false. At a time when Real Girl should be exploring the nuances of their relationship, this story arc is forcing them through an unnecessary reaffirmation of basic trust and support.

Takanashi's sloppy and overstated introduction has me worried, even though the handful of scenes before his appearance reinforce my interest in the show's core narrative. By going through the motions of creating a rival for Tsutsui, Real Girl is straying away from its strong points. Cheap teenage drama can reduce a show to another face in the crowd of its genre, but strong and insightful character writing will always stand out. This episode pulls the series toward the former and away from the latter, sidelining its more compelling threads for a premise we've all seen plenty of times before. Couple that with a downward trend in animation quality and you end up with a concerning number of red flags for such an early point in the season. As invested as I am in Iroha and Tsutsui, the two of them can only do so much if the rest of the show comes up short.

Rating: B-

Real Girl is currently streaming on HIDIVE.