Working!! 09 – There’s Something About Kotori-chan

This week’s instalment of Working!! focused on the show’s most absurd situation yet: the episode revolved around Sota cross-dressing to meet Inami’s usually-absent father. Surprisingly, though, the subject matter was handled in a fashion which really wasn’t as over the top as I would have expected. The humour didn’t attempt to be as dramatic as the events taking place, and this created a really nice contrast between sheer insanity on screen and jokes that didn’t actually push all that hard. The show knows when it needs to go the extra mile for a laugh but it also knows when it doesn’t. The latter was definitely the case here, and suffice to say, things were absolutely hilarious. I was reduced to tears from laughing so hard.

Inami's dad teaches by example...

Some of the things I absolutely loved in this episode were the staff member’s reactions upon meeting Kotori-chan. We know the characters so well now that it was great to see them in a situation which was out of the ordinary (for the show at least). Particularly funny was Kyoko’s reaction – we’re so used to seeing someone who doesn’t care about anything enough to react to strongly it that it was great to see her genuinely fazed. Sato’s sardonicism toward it all was also a lot of fun to watch, and Poplar fawning over Sota’s alter ego and Inami being disappointed that even he had larger breasts than her were utterly brilliant. Perhaps my favourite reaction of all, though, was spacey Yachiyo actually offering a logical alternate solution and then the deadpan response from Sato that followed (“there are times when men have to be men”).

... and Sota's dad liked to take photos of his son in dresses.

Even though she didn’t have a huge amount of screen time in this episode, I’m starting to love Aoi more and more as her time in the spotlight diminishes. She’s brilliant as a side character, and with her well-stocked disguise kit, excellent eavesdropping skills and bugging of Sota’s uniform, she always had something perfectly funny to do or say here. She’s starting to really remind me of a girl detective, and I’ve always found those types a lot of fun to watch or read about. (I may also have had a bit of a crush on several of those girls, too, but keep it quiet, will you?) At this point, I’m very much wondering what Inami is: who is this girl, really?

Are there any normal fathers in this series?

Another character from this episode who deserves mention is Inami’s father. He’s both totally inept and totally insane (and perhaps very creepy, depending on how you look at things), going from brainwashing his daughter at a young age into fearing men and, by association, himself, to bringing a fake hunting rifle into a family restaurant because his daughter may have accepted White Day chocolates from a boy. Yeah. Overprotective doesn’t even begin to cover it. In any case, I found him hysterically funny, with his crowning moment being almost stumbling upon Kotori-chan’s secret and then threatening to shoot him/her with the rifle he had already revealed to be fake. This scene was also great because Inami was able to jump in and save the day somewhat and, perhaps more importantly, Sota and Inami were able to be (very) close together without her punching him.

This, of course, brings me to something that I feel has been starting to really build up since last week: Sota and Inami’s relationship. In this episode, Sota not only cross-dressed for Inami but also successfully stood up to her father for the insanity he put her though. In return, Inami is now very much enamoured, if she wasn’t already before. Anyway, the two of them have basically been cemented as the couple (or at least one of the couples) that will come out of this series – we even got a new ED dedicated to their budding relationship – and I’m actually glad for that. Despite disliking both of them at first, I’ve really come to love the moments that they’re on screen and genuinely like them as characters. Next week, it looks as though their relationship will be in focus again with Nazuna coming to work at Wagnaria and asking a lot of questions about the two of them, if the preview is anything to go by. As always, I’m really looking forward to the upcoming episode and, in particular, I can’t wait to see how Nazuna will fit in with the group. Here’s hoping for a lot more fun as the series starts to wrap up!

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