DAKAICHI -I'm being harassed by the sexiest man of the year- Episode 8 Review: H-Hands off My Swim Trunks.

This week’s episode takes us on a trip to sunny Hawaii! Takato and Junta are on location in Hawaii, so expect a lot of exotic locales and flower print shirts; white sand beaches, ocean, sun… It’s a tropical adventure with the number 1 and 2 sexiest men of the year and it’s about to get steamy…

Plot

After wrapping up a commercial shoot and Hawaii, Takato kicks back for a little R&R. Of course, Junta is not far behind… A romantic rendezvous for two in sunny Hawaii!! What could possibly go wrong?

Episode Highlights

Lots of Transitions: For some reason, there are a lot of title card transitions that break up the flow of the episode. There were way more than was reasonably necessary, giving the whole episode the feel of a clip show rather than a cohesive story.

English: So, the whole episode takes place in Hawaii, and despite everyone speaking Japanese, midway through the episode a few of the locals use English when praising Ayagi after he saves a dog during the fire dancing performance.

Themes and Trivia

Fire Dance: Junta and Takato go and see a Fire Dancing Performance. Many cultures have some form of fire performances, which are performed for entertainment and/or as rituals. Fire performances are a popular tourist attraction in Hawaii

Banana Boat: Ryo and his friends are seen riding a banana-shaped boat, a popular tourist activity. However, unlike in the anime, the actual boat is more akin to a raft that is pulled behind a motorboat.

Naupaka: Naupaku are a type of flower native to the Hawaiian islands. There are two types of the flower, one found near the sea (Naupaka Kahakai) and the other up in the mountains (Naupaka Kauihiwa). Each flower consists of what looks like half a flower blossom and when two are held together they form an entire blossom. While there are several legends associated with the flower, Takato recounts the legend where a goddess (Pele) falls in love with a mortal man already betrothed to another. In order to avoid retribution for spurning the goddess the man and his lover flee, the woman to the mountains and the man to the sea. Another has the lovers being chased by a vengeful Pele, only being saved by her kinder sisters who turn them into the mountain Naupaka and sea Naupaka to save them from their sister’s wrath. It is said that when both versions of the flowers are joined, the lovers are reunited.

Comments

Hawaiian adventure, enough said. I’d normally chock this up to being another anime-only creation, but, their Hawaii trip is an actual chapter in the manga, so this is 100% canon. But, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel like a filler story. With all the random transitions, this episode does not flow as well as the previous 7 episodes. I suspect this is because they’re setting up the manga’s Paparazzi Arc as the anime’s finale, since it is the storyline with the highest stakes and makes up the bulk of the manga’s latter half. So, this episode is kind of like the calm before the storm, because shit really hits the fan after this point… that is unless they decide to ditch that in favor of an anime only final conflict (which I sincerely hope they DON’T do).

There weren’t any steamy scenes between the main pair since they’re constantly being cockedblocked by either Ayagi or Ryo… Trust me when I say it is not nearly as funny the third or fourth time. Hell, it’s not even funny the first time around… But alas, since the episode is utterly devoid of actual conflict, they had to trump up something to stretch out the episode. *sigh* The only important takeaways from the episode was the scene where Junta buys the creepy keychains (because they’re kind of important later) and the scene where they discuss the legend of the Naupaka since it is all kinds of foreshadowing!

Calm Before the Storm

This episode is a preamble to a much more interesting storyline, and it shows. On its own, Episode 8 doesn’t really hold up like the rest; it’s just kind of bland. Aside from a few ‘important’ plot points, this episode could be skipped and you wouldn’t have missed much. All in all this was a so-so episode. Not ‘bad’ by traditional standards, but, not ‘good’ either.

I’ll be back next week with another DAKAICHI review, but in the meantime, be sure to check out MANGA.TOKYO’s other amazing Fall 2018 reviews!!

NEXT TIME: Hug 9: … I guess you two are close