Working!! 02

A month after the preview episode’s airing, it’s finally time for the second episode Working!!. Despite the gap, no time has passed in the world of the series and in the opening voiceover, we realise that Sota is still extremely good at sticking his foot in his mouth. He calls sensitive-about-her-age Kyoko “middle-aged” and questions her judgement about putting Inami (who is afraid of men and reflexively punches them) on a shift with him.

Inami, use Androphobic Right Hook!

We are then thrown straight into the jokes – without an OP to break things up yet – when Inami vehemently defends herself after Sota questions her ability to deal with the male chefs and customers. To prove herself, she goes up to one of the chefs and try and talk herself into thinking he’s a woman. She’s successful at delivering the ramen to a male customer, but can’t put it down because all her energy is going into not hitting him. She then explains to Sota that she truly does want to get over her fear and, of course, he tells her that she’s way scarier than any man. Cue an off-screen punch and Inami telling Kyoko that she’ll be fine to work a shift with Sota because “he really pisses her off”. And onto the sickly sweet but very nice looking OP (which ends with a group “Yay!”).

This is just like that one time in that fighting anime...

We now move into a bizarre montage of food being delivered and then Sota being punched by Inami. The girl soon tries her hardest to work things out with him but only gets a cold reaction from Sota, prompting her to ask Poplar for help. She explains that the reason he acts so sweetly towards her (and not Inami) is his love for all things small, which they decide can’t really be helped. Inami is later forced to face her fear when she’s asked to clean up a male customer’s table. She asks if it’s alright to hit him and is dragged away by Sota before he has the opportunity to respond. Sota then gives her some sort of strange pep talk and she resolves to punch him whenever she feels like hitting somebody else. Finally, at the end of the episode, Poplar asks Sota to try and be warmer towards Inami. He compliments her and she’s truly happy… until he explains he’s only complimenting her hairpin and she hits him. We soon find out, though, that Inami is actually overjoyed at the comment and only hit him out of surprise.

Call me by the wrong name again and I'mma cut you.

A lot of the humour in this show is either physical comedy or comes from contrast. I have found the latter to be fantastic, with some golden examples being Inami punching Sota and then politely bowing and asking him to work well with her; Inami calling Sota “Katanashi” instead of “Takanashi” (resulting in him pointing three butter knives at her and telling her getting people’s names wrong is the height of rudeness), and then Poplar walking in and calling him the same but with him smiling sweetly and helping her; and Yachiyo putting up a sign to let the employees know that they should watch their behaviour around customers as it may be misinterpreted… while having a sword tucked into her apron. The humour, in general, is very over-the-top so it won’t be to everyone’s taste, and the show’s zaniness can work against it, as it will sometimes push too hard in the physical comedy department.

What is it about parfaits and lesbian crushes?

While it was by no means brilliant, I enjoyed this episode and found it to be extremely funny at times. The voice acting was also very strong (probably better than the first episode’s) and the animation quality remains smooth and consistent (despite A-1 Pictures clearly devoting more of their resources to Night Raid). Thanks for the meal, Working!!.