Densha Otoko Day

Day Two.

Another day has come. You must be curious about the title. Well, I’ll get to that later. I had an earlier start today. I woke up at 1pm. I started loading new dramas and anime, the moment I opened my eyes. The internet connection in my apartment was kinda slow. I said I was going to do more things today but I guess I failed again. I ended up spending the whole day watching anime and dramas. But I did get to start watching D. Gray-man like I promised yesterday. I loaded four episodes. I started watching one while eating breakfast. It was really interesting, The art, the style and settings were quite similar to that of “Full Metal Alchemist”, which happened to be one of my all time favorite anime. Not to mention, the lead character, Allen Walker, resembles Eduard Elrich of Full Metal Alchemist. He even had some machine-like arm that resembles Eduard’s metal arm. Although, I guess Allen’s arm was  a bit more like Nube’s hand in “Hell Teacher Nube” because it gets really big and scary. Anyway, D. Gray-man was about exorcists and akumas (demons). In a way it’s like “Bleach”. But instead of Soul Reapers there were exorcists, instead of hollows there were akumas and instead of Soul Society, there’s the “Black Order”. Since Bleach and Full Metal Alchemist were on my top ten anime list, it wasn’t hard for me to like D. Gray-man. It also had a lot of interesting characters and although it’s dark and creepy sometimes, it hasd an ample amount of humor to balance it off. It also had a silent, rude and mysterious type of character that was similar to Sasuke of Naruto. His name is Kanada and he’s one of my favorite characters so far. Although I didn’t like his hairstyle because he looked like a girl.

So after watching a couple of episodes of D.Gray-man, I watched the movie, Spring Story. I guess my day is not complete without a dose of Oguri Shun. It was a story about two people who obviously liked each other but were too stubborn to admit it. It was a really simple story and there’s nothing that special about it. But I loved seeing Shun as a basketball player. He reminded me so much of Rukawa from Slam Dunk. I was a huge Rukawa fan! And during the basketball scene in Spring Story, I was having a Slam Dunk flashback and I was chanting, “Rukawa!” “Rukawa!”. The funny thing was that, after that basketball scene, Shun’s character (Kei) gave the girl he liked (Akane) a Slam Dunk manga. He said it was his bible. That was freakin’ weird. Another thing that’s weird was that while I was watching this movie I also had other flashbacks because Oguri Shun really resembled “Ryu” in this movie.

Ryu was this guy I really liked when I was in middle-school. He was a basketball superstar at my school and all the girls were crazy about him. I never really paid attention to him. As an otaku, I didn’t really care about girl-stuff like clothes and cute boys. But when I joined an art contest, I was surprised that “Ryu” was my competitor. He was really really good! And I found out that he also loved drawing anime characters. We got to talk about a lot of things during the contest and it turned out that we liked the same anime and manga. Even though he was cool, popular and good-looking, Ryu was actually quite an otaku too. Since that day, I started watching his basketball games and cheered for him like all the other girls. One day, Ryu left a note on my desk, saying he really likes me. I didn’t believe it at first because he was just too popular. But some of my classmates said that they saw Ryu staring at me and smiling while my friend was fixing my hair. (She was trying to style my hair like Sailor moon) They said, that Ryu said I looked really cute. Of course I didn’t believe them. But then Ryu kept leaving me notes asking me to meet him. He even left a really cute bracelet on my desk. It was like dream! I felt like Yamada in Densha Otoko. How could a guy as perfect as Ryu fall for an otaku like me? I was really scared and I didn’t know how to act in this sort of situation. My friend and fellow-otaku Mari helped me write a letter for Ryu. But since we’re both inexperienced with boys, I wrote all the wrong things. And in the end, I wasn’t able to tell Ryu how I felt for him. What’s worse, I lost the bracelet he gave me. When we got to highschool, Ryu met a really pretty and popular senpai and he started going out with her. I didn’t blame him. He told me his feelings and waited for me for almost a year. But I was a hopeless case. I was completely clueless and so he moved on. Being an ota could be really hard sometimes.

Going back to the present, after watching “Spring Story” I moved on to “Densha Otoko Special”. For those who are clueless about dramas, “Densha Otoko”(電車男) was a really popular drama based on the true story about an otaku who fell in love with a very pretty girl. Somehow it was kinda similar to my story above. Anyway, the whole series was really close to my heart because watching it was like looking at myself in the mirror. Yamada was so much like me in many ways and I envied him for finding such good friends who supported him and helped him change for the better. I lurked in different threads just like Yamada but I was never able to find such true and loyal otaku friends online. Anyway, I finished the series a few weeks ago and now I watched the Special episode which was supposed to be an Alternate Ending. It was more of a continuation of the story though. It also filled in some of the gaps in the series and even showed some of the scenes from a different perspective. In this Special we’re able to see the other side of the story. It also featured the story of Yamada’s friend who turned out to be the previous star of the thread and was called “Guitar Otoko”. There was also the story of the Tiger-fan guy who fell in love with a Korean girl from a Snack bar. Although this Special showed some really sad aspects of being an ota, (Like being fooled by pretty girls, being treated unfairly and being ridiculed), it had an utterly hilarious side that was too much for me to handle. I was laughing so hard that my neighbor even came to check on me. It started with a spoof of Yamada’s confession scene on the rooftop. But instead of Yamada and Saori, it was Sakuragi and Jinkama. It was so funny, I was laughing like crazy! They also did some sort of re-enactment of the train scene when Sakuragi thought Shun’s girlfriend was Hermes and tried to make her admit it and then an otaku from the Doku-otoko thread stood up for her. Then the other guys from the thread came to aid the otaku. It was hilarious! Then there was also this scene when Yamada’s friends sort of dubbed his confession scene with their voices. That scene was too funny! The two guys even kissed! Although this Special had tons of laughs, the ending was pretty touching. Guitar Otoko was finally able to fall in love again and confessed his love in front of everyone. His performance was so horrible though and I would rather slit my throat than listen to him. But his sincerity and courage really touched me. I really really love this series! If only I could turn back time, I would do what Densha did and confess my feelings to Ryu.

After Densha Otoko Special, I watched “Densha Otoko Deluxe”. It’s the continuation of the Special but it took place almost a year after the Special. This time Yamada was thinking of proposing to Saori, most of the single guys on the thread already have girlfriends, Densha Otoko was now made into a movie and Akihabara was now a tourist spot where the otaku are treated as celebrities. (Yeah right…as if that would happen) Anyway, this one’s not as funny as the Special and even the obstacles between Densha and Hermes were quite typical. But what’s really cool was that they used the real Densha Otoko movie posters here. I was actually wondering before, what the real Densha and Hermes felt when their story became such a huge phenomenon in Japan. There was the movie, the book, the manga and the drama! Well, Densha Otoko Deluxe answered all my questions. It was really funny when Yamada saw the Densha Otoko movie poster and said that he’s not as handsome as the guy portraying him in the movie. That scene made this episode feel so real! Although, Densha Otoko Deluxe was pretty much the same as the series, there were some scenes that were just way too weird. I mean, the whole going to Tahiti to get the Black Pearl thing was utterly ridiculous! It was completely pointless. But aside from that, I really loved this episode. It featured a brand new character too. Kitamura Kazuki who played the role of Nakagomi Takeshi in “Akihabara@DEEP” was in this episode. And what’s really funny was that his role here in Densha Otoko was exactly the same as the one in Akihabara! In Akihabara@DEEP he was the eccentric President of Digital Capital, the biggest IT company in Akihabara. In Densha Otoko, he was the eccentric President of Cyber Next, the biggest IT company in Akihabara. Even the way he talked and acted were almost exactly the same. It was as if they borrowed the character from Akihabara@DEEP and placed him in Densha Otoko! But I’m really glad they did that. It felt as if they were merging the two shows together. Since both are shot in Akihabara and featured the lives of otakus, it’s great to see them being fused together. Another thing I loved was seeing Oguri Shun in total hacker-mode. In the drama, he was just the cool guy who did those intricate ASCII art messages. But here, I got to see him in action! He looked so cool when he was hacking into Cyber Next’s system. No, he was beyond cool! He was in a whole new level of coolness! But I guess the best part of this series was the very touching ending. There were a lot of stories about love and the power of love that could overcome everything. But somehow Densha Otoko topped it all! There’s a certain level of purity and innocence in this story that others didn’t have. It’s a love story that could touch the coldest heart and bring a warm smile on everyone’s faces. I thought I wouldn’t like it before because I never thought an otaku like me could have have such pure and wonderful love story but watching this drama somehow filled my heart with hope. And it made me want to believe that miracles could happen and that an otaku like me could someday have a happy ending. Densha Otoko really is the hero of all otaku!

End of Day Two.