Tanaka-kun is Always Listless

Episode 6

Have you ever wondered to what depths someone would descend in order to achieve ultimate laziness? Sure, Garfield has tried over the years, but nothing quite compares to Tanaka-kun trying to avoid the stress and pain of having to carry an open umbrella in the rain. I mean, really – you expect him to exert the energy opening the damn thing and then actually holding his arm up for the entirety of his walk to school? He's already walking; how much more energy does he need to expend? Of course, the downside is that walking in the rain unprotected will give you a cold, and that's also a lot of trouble, so Tanaka-kun does make a couple of stabs at avoiding the rain without that pesky umbrella – like spontaneously evolving a rain-repelling shield or dodging raindrops, which ironically uses more energy than just carrying the umbrella in the first place.

This episode of Tanaka-kun is Always Listless is divided into three parts: the umbrella, the inevitable cold, and a misunderstanding of impressive proportions on Echizen's part. As you might have guessed, the umbrella segment is my personal favorite. Not only is Tanaka at his finest in his devotion to listlessness – you can see how Miyano would be inspired – but it's also the most delightfully absurd segment, from the attempts to avoid using an umbrella to the setup for the gag that makes up the third part of the episode. It's so smoothly done that you don't even realize what's coming until we hit part three, at which point both Shiraishi's freak-out about sharing an umbrella with Tanaka (which flies right over his head) and the doodle she draws during the eye-catch run up against Echizen's misunderstanding of something Tanaka communicates in part two. While it doesn't feel right to say that the entire episode was leading to the Echizen situation, it is really well done, creating a smooth narrative in a clearly partitioned episode, which is not something that many shows can pull off.

On the downside, Echizen's panic over whether she should potentially marry Tanaka or Ohta is a little grating. She's such a blast of energy after eighteen minutes of low-key Tanaka “action” that it feels like the anime equivalent of a blaring alarm waking up from a deep sleep. The issue goes a bit deeper though. While previous parts of the episode have been playing with anime conventions like the romantic umbrella-sharing Shiraishi works herself up about or catching a cold in the rain and having to rely on your close friend to understand you without words (another nice subtle BL joke), this segment just jumps into the “romantic misunderstanding” trope with both feet. There's a nice little joke about how Miyano would call Echizen (Ecchan) “Occhan” if she married Ohta, which is a word for an old man, but no amount of sparkles can make the last third quite as good as the first two overall.

Fortunately, the music is spot-on this week, with classical strains mixing with a tango-like tune to help enhance the mood or point out the lunacy of what is being done or said. It's fairly subtle, kept a little quieter than the background music in other shows, and sometimes you don't even realize that it's enhancing the mood or action until you stop to think about it, which has always been my favorite kind of score. It also works with the character of Tanaka-kun himself – he's a character who develops over the course of the series. We know much more about him now than we did in episode one, unlike gag comedies that throw a mostly-formed character at us from the get-go. This can be said for most of the characters, although I think we see it most in Tanaka and Shiraishi; Ohta may be amazing, but he's also not showing much evolution as the story progresses. (It could be argued that's because he's perfect just the way he is.)

Next week, we're promised a story about Tanaka-kun's Valentine, so there's a good chance that the romantic threads established this week will continue to be important. This gradual development has been one of the show's greatest strengths in general, so this should be a good story, if Tanaka-kun can be bothered to open anything, knowing that when White Day rolls around, he'll have to return the favors.

Rating: B

Tanaka-kun is Always Listless is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.