June 17, 2012

Mysterious Girlfriend X Ep. 09

Ah, sweet relief. After the heaviness of the last episode, a lighter and more humorous story. The topics for the day are jealousy and possessiveness, and playing with your hair.

The story opens in Urabe's bedroom, where she gets up with a serious case of bed-head, and just goes to school that way. Just as Tsubaki is thinking what a mess she is, Oka comes up and tells her what a mess she is, and offers to fix her up.

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Look who sleeps nude
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Spoiling that image immediately.

A quick trip to some spare room, and some serious detangling later, Urabe emerges looking so different, the reaction is "Who's that girl? She's really cute!" Tsubaki is surprised that he can see her eyes, and Yajima runs up to tell her how great she looks. Oka pokes her head in to say she did it - one must get credit for one's meddling. (It's hard to see, but the front of her chair is off the ground from the pull of the brush.)

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"*grunt* you know, *oof* shaved heads are *argh* in Vogue too..."
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I can see!
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"I did this, pay attention to me!"

The whole day is different. With her hair out of her face, the guys in Gym running laps around the field where the girls are playing Vollyball start talking about how cute she is, and start talking about things like asking her out, which pisses off Tsubaki to no end. (Really, why not end the pretense? I've never known a good reason for it.)

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"Suddenly I like Weird Girls... and Vollyball."
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Frigging Multi-plane clouds.

On the way home, his jealousy over the attention she received comes to the surface. He asks if she's going to style her hair like that again. Her answer is totally passive, she doesn't much care. "It's like this because Oka did it, if she does it again tomorrow, it might look like this." (not an actual translation). Tsubaki asks that if it's possible, could she just go back to normal? She skewers him with a simple "Why?" He thinks to himself that he's worked so hard to see Urabe's face over time, and that to have it just exposed to everyone isn't right. Without actually saying anything, Urabe must have picked up on this, because she pulls out the hair ties and shakes out her hair. Then she asks him to give her his hands, which she places on her head and tells him to mess up her hair, forcefully. "There, back to normal." She says that if he doesn't like the other hairstyle, then she won't wear it. He decides that this is how he likes her hair, and she confesses that she actually kinda liked having him muss her hair.

(Too many shots, but I couldn't decide which ones to ditch)
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Deconstructing Beauty, and finding something more Real

The next day, Oka, the Mad Hair Stylist wants to strike again. After all, everyone loved her image change yesterday. Urabe refuses, twice, stunning Oka. But Oka is quick to try to ferret out the reason. She figures that Tsubaki didn't like it. Urabe denies it, but you have to watch those visual metaphors, like the water running in the outdoor sink suggesting the saliva transfer.... Oka says that Tsubaki DOES seem a little possessive, explaining that he doesn't want the other boys seeing her face. (What, Tsubaki's a Muslim now?) This conclusion hadn't occurred to Urabe, who is stunned enough that Oka can sample her reaction. And from this she has to ask, "When Tsubaki asked you to return your hair to normal, something happened with you two, didn't it?" Urabe's answer is non-specific enough to make Oka curious, leaving it at "Tsubaki did something that made me feel good." This of course really gets Oka going, so Urabe gets up and demonstrates, vigorously ruffling Oka's hair. This leaves her speechless.

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"Wanna do it again?"  "No."
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Utter Incomprehension.  Don't let this happen to you.
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"I bet you did something kinky."  Amazingly, it's still attached.
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Woody Allen... Sleeper... Orgasmatron... Google it.

On the way home from school this time following Ueno and Oka for once, Oka stops and demands that Ueno ruffle her hair. He, of course, has no idea what's going on, but he's not the one who makes decisions in their relationship. It also rather strikingly shows their size differences to me. When he's done, she's blissed out and her glasses are fogged. She concludes that Urabe was right about having your hair mussed by someone you like feeling good. "Those two sure do some interesting things." (HS translates interesting as "Kinky").

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"You want me to do what? In the street?"
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"Gort!  Klaatu Barada Nicto!  Klaatu Barada Nicto!"
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Amazingly, it's still attached. (Okay, I used that before.  Didn't want to do the Scooby Doo joke.)
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Can we do Barbarella next?
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"Hmmm, a new way of messing with people's heads."

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REALLY cute Eyecatch (full size)

After the break, we go to the roof of the school, where one enterprising fellow named Nakajima from the photography club is selling photos he snapped of Urabe's new hairstyle for ¥300 each. Most of the guys are interested and buy them. Tsubaki is livid. Ueno notices his fury, but doesn't understand it because he's not in on their relationship. Tsubaki brushes it off, but he keeps stewing about how Urabe belongs to him alone. Then it occurs to him that that is a really possessive way of thinking.

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"Full House"
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My first Horizontal de-pan.
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Well, what do you expect?  You've only got a crappy Polaroid.
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"Who, us?"

Nakajima calls over to Ueno and Tsubaki, asking if they want to buy any, Tsubaki is torn. As much as he hates the other guys having pictures of HIS girlfriend, he really wants some, but he doesn't want to have to pay someone else for pictures of HIS girlfriend. Ueno's rationale for not buying is much simpler - Oka. Then someone fatefully mentions that Urabe looks like one of the latest Idols, Imai Momoka.

Dun dun DAAAA!

Tsubaki, who reads Film Fan magazines all the time, apparently hasn't heard of this idol and is suddenly interested after hearing that she looks like his girlfriend. But then, she's only famous so far for doing a bottled water commercial.

That day after school, after parting with Urabe, Tsubaki diverts from going home and hits the bookstore first to pick up the Imai Momoka photo book. The dumbass would rather spend ¥3000 on pictures of a girl who looks like his girlfriend than a tenth of that for an actual picture. And to make matters worse, as he is buying it, Ueno catches him at it. This isn't an immediate disaster, since he doesn't know that he's seeing Urabe, but just wait.

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Actually, I only comment on all the wide pics because they run into the small ones otherwise.
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As you can see, that doesn't happen the other way.

Tsubaki is immediately up in his room to look at his new  porn  book. In his favor, he is comparing everything he looks at to Urabe, and usually she comes out on top, especially in the swimsuit pictures. (There are WAY too many pans of the book to do them all.) EXCEPT, there is one picture of the young idol smiling a big free and open smile, and Urabe never smiles like that. This becomes his favorite in the entire book, and he pronounces it a good buy.

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These two are clickable.
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Ever think YOU are the reason Urabe won't smile like this?
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A love of books will stay with you for a lifetime

The next day, while walking to school, Ueno and Oka are talking about how Nakajima was selling pictures of Urabe.  Oka teasingly asks him if he bought any, and he gives the right answer.  Then she asks about Tsubaki, and is surprised by the negative answer.  But Ueno offers that Urabe is probably his type, since he spotted him yesterday buying the Imai Momoka book - getting it exactly backwards.

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Hmmm, What sort of Deviltry can I use this for?

What follows is Oka's most thoughtless and potentially destructive act of meddling ever.  When she joins Urabe for lunch, she brings along a copy of the book (from wherever she got it), pulls Urabe's bangs from her face, and pronounces her Imai Momoka's double.  Like Tsubaki, Urabe has been blissfully ignorant of the Idol's existence, but Oka explains, AND says that Tsubaki just bought her photo collection - Ueno saw him buying it - and she's sure he bought it because she looks like you, Urabe.

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"Ignore the kid behind the dumpster, he wasn't popular anyway."
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"You're twins!"  "What about my twins?"

That afternoon, on the way back from school, after his dose, Urabe confronts him coolly about the photo book (amazing that he didn't pick up her emotions from the drool at that point).  She asks him if he has it, and he asks how she knew.  She asks if she really looks like the idol, and he says yes, and that the reason he bought it was because she looked like her.  She says that she wants to see it, and tells him to get it and bring it back, and they'll meet in the park.

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Busted.

In the park, she pages though the book, and not knowing how to read Urabe's mood - something he should learn as a survival tactic - he tries to share enthusiastically.  She closes the book and hands it back to him, and asks him, which picture is his favorite?  He holds up the picture of the big smile, and Urabe gets up and tells him to hold still.  NOW he figures out what's coming, and the scissors come out.  In seconds, the book is confetti.  "Tsubaki-kun, you're my boyfriend, so I don't think it's necessary for you to be attracted to an idol who looks like me." (SubDesu) "You're supposed to be my boyfriend, so you don't need to worship an Idol who looks like me." (HorribleSubs)

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"You know, they say when couples share Erotica, it can lead to better sex."
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"I'd love it if you tried THIS position."
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"No."  (I was going to have a great de-pan of her drawing her scissors, but she moved, dammit!)
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"I said we were going to be each-other's firsts.  You need to save your strength."

Relieved to be in one piece, Tsubaki comes to the conclusion that maybe Urabe is a little possessive as well.

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Amazingly, it's still attached.

Posted by: Mauser at 07:58 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 1762 words, total size 16 kb.

1 Please add height= to img tags.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 18, 2012 09:42 PM (5OBKC)

2 To what end?  For the large images, I'm using the BBCode server-side scaling.  Frankly, I don't know in advance what height I'm going to get when I scale to "size=640x" and getting it wrong will just distort the image.

What problem are you having?

Posted by: Mauser at June 19, 2012 12:02 AM (cZPoz)

3 Thanks for writing up these episodes.  The drool thing caught me so off guard that I was missing what seems to be an excellent story (I read parts of the early manga several years ago.)  Keep up the great work!

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at June 22, 2012 03:12 PM (T5fuR)

4 Hey!  Thanks.  I'm glad someone appreciates it.  Episode 10 should be going up this weekend. (Meaning I'm STILL going to be two episodes behind).  I must admit my coverage is sometimes getting a little TOO detailed - especially compared to 26 episode shows that can be covered in a single post (Princess Resurrection/Monster Princess, and an upcoming savaging of Solty Rei), but I do feel the urge to go back and update the earlier reviews.

Posted by: Mauser at June 23, 2012 12:02 AM (cZPoz)

5 What problem are you having?

Probably the full post isn't loading.  I've had similar complaints; a simple refresh of the post usually cures the problem. 

I have no idea what they're on about, actually.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 23, 2012 08:00 AM (2L1Hk)

6 I am curious if maybe going back and adding the resulting height of the 640x Resizing would help.

Oh, and I think I figured out the margins/spacing issue.  A while back I did a 4-square of 320 wide images, and they all ran together.  So I started adding a space between the images, which makes for a nice border.  That is probably ALSO responsible for the leading below them.  So I'll have to experiment with spaces on the same line as a 640 wide image to see if it gives me the separation I want.

Not that that will stop the (hopefully) humorous comments.  I kinda like doing a two-track review of straight text and funny captions.

Posted by: Mauser at June 23, 2012 10:26 PM (cZPoz)

7 It may be simple to Mr. Duck, but imagine an Internet where EVERY page has to be reloaded twice to display right.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 28, 2012 04:44 PM (5OBKC)

8 Interesting.  but do you know if that is what is required to make mee.nu work properly?  If I go through the effort to edit all these posts to add height tags, and it doesn't help....

Is it a browser specific problem?  Is it a problem with the server?  A timeout?  Voodoo fixes aren't a good idea.

Posted by: Mauser at June 29, 2012 01:43 AM (cZPoz)

9 Mauser, Pixy has been working on it for a couple of years.  The only fix to date is to not post pictures.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 29, 2012 08:35 PM (wwB7j)

10 Well, that would surely speed up my review process.  Which currently involves many draft savings, and two computers to capture and de-pan the images.

One thing I need to ask is, is there some mode aside from Draft and Publish that will allow me to preview what the post will look like in its final form before I loose it on an unsuspecting public?

Posted by: Mauser at June 29, 2012 11:19 PM (cZPoz)

11 Not that I know of.

Posted by: Wonderduck at July 02, 2012 04:53 AM (7W8ch)

12 height= works for me, although granted I rarely have more than 1 picture.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at July 02, 2012 08:00 PM (5OBKC)

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