Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend Flat

Episode 8

So far this season, Utaha and Eriri have had their feature date episodes with Aki. Now it's Megumi's turn, and it's none too soon given the issues that have been lingering in their relationship since Comiket.

At the end of last episode, Aki clearly finally grasped how he had done Megumi wrong. But this being Aki, he finds a needlessly melodramatic, long-winded, and easily-misinterpreted way to go about apologizing, one that's just as self-serving as it is genuine, which takes up the entire first half of the episode. For the most part, Megumi just picks her way through Aki's rhetoric in the same pragmatic fashion as always, with the big zinger this time being the observation that dating sims don't often reflect realistic character behavior (mostly girls falling for guys who haven't earned their affection) is because the people who make them are like Aki, not firmly entrenched in reality.

However, things don't just end this time with Megumi expressionlessly listening to Aki prattle on and then going with the flow. For perhaps the first time in the franchise to date, we actually see Megumi's even-tempered veneer shatter. Even when she was angry with Aki after Comiket, she didn't show it much visually, but she gets thrown completely for an emotional loop by Aki's observation that she might have liked Blessing Software even more than he did, and he deeply regrets wronging her by not carrying out his duties to the utmost like everyone else on the project. The question then is whether her shock and tears in response to this are a reaction to Aki revealing something that she wasn't aware of herself or being stunned that the very dense Aki actually figured out something so insightful on his own; perhaps it's both. Whatever the case, it leads to the first time in the series when the unfailingly direct Megumi is disingenuous, as she tries to insist that Aki's apologies are cheap. Sorry, not buying that brush-off under the circumstances, Megumi.

The rest of the episode entails the “date,” where Megumi goes to Aki's house to discuss his new game proposal and stay overnight. She cooks for him, plays games in his room, and even takes a bath then sleeps in his bed, all things that might be ordinary “friend” activities if they weren't hormonal teenagers with romantic tension between them. The animators seem keen on emphasizing the latent potential of the scenario by giving Megumi her most overt fanservice shots of the season, both in her bath scene and in a pointed cleavage-baring scene later.

The other big question is whether or not Megumi is actually in love with Aki at this point. It's indisputable that both Utaha and Eriri have feelings for him, but Megumi at least keeps insisting that they're actually just friends. Her words seem to make it clearer that she got fully invested in the project because she was having fun, but does her investment really stop there? Aki's usual personality clearly frustrates her some, but she also seems to be drawn to his passion. Seeing her spend this alone time with Aki does help bring his romantic options into focus. Utaha is the one who can most share his artistic passions, and Eriri is the one who can best provide him long-term devotion and stability, but Megumi, with her pragmatism and grounding influence, is the only one of the three who seems like she could balance him well as his wife. She represents the unexciting but effective choice, even if she is hardly as plain as the show often suggests. Still, I'm not holding out hope that Aki will ever appreciate the quality of his options as much as the audience does.

Rating: B+

Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend Flat is currently streaming on Amazon's Anime Strike.