Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend Flat Episode 9 Review: Graduation with a Twist

Well, hello everyone! I shall assume that you have watched Episode 9 of Saekano before you came to read this review, because, honestly, I cannot keep it spoiler-free considering all of the events that took place. I have mentioned a couple of times before that the past few episodes of the anime had gotten really boring in some sense, with pretty much no action whatsoever. A lot of monologues and dialogues up until now, but this episode made up for all of that. I was feeling pretty pumped up and excited when Tomoya declared that the name of the next game is going to be Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata, which is pretty much the name of the show, but god… who could have known that things would take such a turn. Honestly, I never thought that Saekano would present a plot twist at the end of Season 2. Unpredictable stuff.

But on the other hand this episode was almost fan service-free, which in its turn was a very nice change of pace. Anyways, we have very few episodes left, and I am not sure where they are trying to go with this twist, but I guess the only way to find out is to watch and wait for the following episodes. So, let’s not waste our time talking about useless stuff. Right into the review we go!

Japanese Title: 卒業式と超展開

Plot

Everything starts with Tomoya taking Utaha out for a drink after her graduation ceremony. Since we have already seen the previous episodes, we already know that this is going to be about him asking her to be the writer for his next game, together with Kato, Eriri, and Michiru. He has a proposal which he has written and gone through many times, he has even managed to get Kato to help him, give opinions, discuss the whole thing with him. And here we have Tomoya, who wants to make a second game with the exact team members, with his same old good circle, but this time he wants the game to take a direction that he will decide on. In other words, he is back to his old plan of making a game where only the cuteness and attractiveness of the heroine is important.

From the look of the face and seriousness that Utaha has when reading the proposal, you can be sure that she’s not taking this lightly, you can see that she does want to work on this together with Tomoya, and well, obviously with Eriri and the other team members. But you can see that she is having some trouble. She bites he nails, takes her time to read it. Well, after re-watching the episode, I realized that she was trying to figure out a way, she was trying to convince herself that Tomoya’s proposal is better, much better than what her and Eriri were introduced to by Akane. But at the end of the day, even if she accepts the fact that Tomoya has progressed a lot as a creator, that he has managed to make a proper proposal unlike the one that he wrote the first time, Utaha has to admit that it is nowhere near the proposal written by Akane. Plus as Utaha says, Tomoya doesn’t have the qualities of a good producer.

Episode Highlights

I do think I have already said most of the things that have to be said about this episode. However, the most important, interesting, and heartbreaking part of the episode was seeing Akane imitating Eriri’s art, and pretty much blackmailing her with it. What I’m going to say from here are simply my assumptions, but let’s give it a shot. Eriri has lost all of her motivation (in some sense), she is in a slump and well, very convinced that she can’t manage to draw anymore, at least not in the way she did in Nasu Kogen.

But the fact that she has agreed to become the artist for Fields Chronicle, means that Akane managed to get Eriri out of her slump, while staying together with Tomoya would have kept her in the slump probably for a very long time.

Themes & Trivia

Umm, this is really hard to put into words, but I feel like the theme of this episode was not all sugary and sweet. Usually we would see that friendship, hard work, and determination would solve all of the problems our heroes had. It wouldn’t exactly be very hard to overcome any hardships. But this time the episode was very realistic. It did have a taste of the real world. The fact that friends, best friends with whom you’ve been through pain and trail can turn their backs to you, betray you and basically leave you when a better offer comes up is the reality of our messed up world. The fact that it was included in this episode made me think a bit better of the show itself.

Let’s Make a Game

And with this the review is over, and so is the episode. I honestly wonder what Tomoya is going to do in the remaining episodes. I mean, get real, he will manage to get them back to Blessing Software and will make the game that he’s been dreaming about for a long time. This is one of the most interesting twists that this show has thrown at us. So let’s wait and see what Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata Flat will throw at us! It can’t end this easily and this soon.

Did you like Episode 9 of Saekano? Let us know in the comments below by using either the forum or the Facebook tab! Join us in our new forum and let’s talk about our favorite series! Also, don’t forget to check the rest of our episodic anime reviews for Spring 2017.

Also, don’t forget to check our list for the series we are going to cover in Summer 2017!