we're finally notdotq anymore

There’s a manga called Onani Master Kurosawa, abbreviated in turns with the initialism OMK and the schematic diagram OGC. It seems to be doing well on the popularity scales right now, with a high rating on MangaFox and everyone in the aniblogosphere forcing each other to read it. ‘Circle jerk’ is a term derisively thrown at the ’sphere every time its members get together and read/watch/comment on something collectively, but now it could be used descriptively rather than derisively.

OMK is a story about a guy who steals people’s shit and ejaculates on it.

Hooked yet?

No, you’re not, because you’ve already read the manga. Because I’m slowpoke.jpg on this and the entire ’sphere has already gasmed to Kurosawa’s bathroom stall antics a million times.

And yes, yes, I know: the story was never about the fapping. The fapping was a metaphor for being antisocial. Thanks, Gunsguru! Amazing, the wisdom you pick up in forum threads.

But interesting to me are neither that the story featured fapping nor that it wasn’t about fapping. Interesting to me is the extra story that Emergency Exit has been translating (by the way, EE, thanks!). In the space of a few well-delivered paragraphs, it takes us somewhere no other manga ever has. Somewhere where I can stand tall, point my middle fingers at the words printed on my t-shirt, and sing a bad country song.

In the manga, Sugawa was a ‘typical’ ‘tsundere.’ I have these words in quotes because I don’t believe in them. OMK is atypical; what business does a typical character have in it? Furthermore, ‘tsundere?’ Really? Recall the only wiki article on tsundere that had jp meyer referenced: there is little that doesn’t fall in the category of tsundere. It’s one of those words, like hikkikomori and otaku, that people try to ascribe a definite meaning to but fail miserably.

In this extra story, we see her true colors: she is a raging bitch of a woman. It’s easy to get into a certain mindset when reading manga. When characters act as Sugawa did toward the end of the manga, we ooh and aah and call them tsundere and for some of us that’s a plus. Also, keep Kurosawa’s perspective in mind: in the latter bit of OMK, everyone has the benefit of the doubt from him. He becomes very Akari-esque, very zen, treating everyone as well as he can, whether or not they may deserve it, and constantly making discoveries of how SUTEKIIIII the people around him are.

Let’s face it. This is a twisted perspective. It’s no less naive than his earlier perspective (‘omg I can only communicate with people through jizzing to them’).

And it’s this new, twisted perspective that allows Kurosawa to fall into an verbally and emotionally abusive relationship with someone that we perverted manga-readers might smile at and call ‘tsundere-chan.’

Do you know what tsundere really is?

And I don’t mean a bit of shyness. I know some people who react mildly violently to things that embarrass them, but that’s different.

Sugawa rages—

“That’s why I’m unable to take this! Why the hell didn’t you talk to me about something so important!? When did you become so high and mighty that you could secretly run off with your buddies and enjoy a fun trip together, bastard?!”

Sugawa’s anger didn’t show any signs of abating, and even now sounded like the screech from a reverberating microphone …

“Don’t fuck with me! We’re breaking up! We’re breaking up!”, and before I could say a single word in return, she hung up. All that remained was a robotic sounding tone.

Tsundere? Tsundere. And what’s tsundere?

I like OMK because unlike in shows like Suzumiya Haruhi, wherein there is a disgustingly violent ‘tsundere’ that people nigh worship, it should be apparent to everyone that Sugawa is completely batshit. While Haruhi might be loved for her eccentricity, her insane abusiveness is so obfuscated by layer after layer of moe bullshit that almost no one sees her for what she really is.

OMK — where’s the moe?

OMK — where’s the blind worship?

OMK — you can see Sugawa. She is naked before you, a hysterical bitch, displaying every reason why tsunderes medium-wide should be rounded up and sent to the chemical showers of fiction.

I have always tried to shed light on the faults of tsundere, but here I am fairly sure I will get across. For one thing, Kurosawa is way more relatable and sympathetic than Kyon (Kyon does nothing but inspire jealousy in me, jealousy for his sarcastic wit; I can not relate to him at all, he is too perfect) and every weak harem lead (humans are stronger than they), so surely readers of OMK feel the pain of a man dealing with the unreasonable. We sympathize with Kurosawa in his ordeals, and wish him happiness.

And his happiness is being denied him by a woman who froths at the mouth at the slightest slight.

OMK shows us the true way: tsundere is the cancer killing /utopia/.

The Shigofumi OVA was easily one of the best OVAs I’ve ever seen, in stark contrast to the last OVA I mentioned in this series. It did so much in terms of expanding the story of its show without, you know, reincarnating its characters or changing their personalities. Anyway.

Fumika rocks.

I can tolerate her brand of tsundere—not too pronounced, neither end of its spectrum dazzlingly extreme. It’s the brand of tsundere that’s kind of realistic and believable, stemming from conflicted feelings (as opposed to, say, the tsundere of Louise of Zero no Tsukaima, which is just there as a contrived moe device). It’s reasonable, and, as we all know, lolikitean means reasonable.