SHIMONETA: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn't Exist

Episode 11

Somehow SHIMONETA has managed to follow up what was easily its worst episode of the season with what is arguably its best. And it does that despite the whole business with aromatic panties still being a major, odious part of the scheme. In fact, it even makes an innovative spin on that gag: at one point Saotome manages to fake out Gathered Fabric members with panties drawn on paper in a bathroom and then uses them to make a “2D vs. 3D” statement. Twisted, but in a perverse way it actually works.

It also accomplishes what it does – namely, an apparent wrap-up to the whole Gathered Fabric – in part by waxing philosophical. The series has previously shown a penchant for this, but nowhere does show more prominently than here. “You can never defeat smart fools who proclaim their own righteousness,” Tanukichi says at one point in quoting his father, only to be rebuffed by Science Girl, who points to Anna as an example of a “smart fool” who became so drunk on her righteousness that she went insane, which leaves her both easily to manipulate and prone to an eventual fall. Later, Blue Snow philosophizes to a crowd about the wrongness of dirty jokes, making the point that they're dirty because they're wrong, and they have appeal because they're wrong, and that believing that they're right is really no different ideologically than believing that they should be suppressed. Operating under the assumption that the series is intending to make a statement about real-world affairs, this seems to be sending a peculiar message: that claiming that access to pornography (and by implication, especially more extreme types) is a “right” is self-defeating, as a big part of its allure is that it is considered naughty and wrong. Hence efforts to suppress it are also ultimately self-defeating, since it just powers their appeal all the more and forces out in the open nutcase terrorists like White Peak. And if you try to go to the extreme and “Big Brother” it into oblivion, then you wind up with casualties like Anna and Tsukimigusa. Contrarily, White Peak essentially claims that there's little point in fighting the system, so just revel in your perversity while you can.

That's pretty heady stuff, especially for a series where a quarter to a third of the dialogue involves sexual innuendo and a girl with a penis head-shaped hairdo who wiggle and then crumples a milk carton with her head in such a way that the milk shoot out past her head as if she were a giant penis ejaculating. (No, really; this does happen.) What sells it, though – and, really, the whole series – are Ayame and Tanukichi. Ayame's passion shines through even in the toughest of situations; it's not hard at all to understand why Kosuri was drawn to her in the first place and avidly returns to her when she inevitably becomes disillusioned with White Peak, whom she discovers has no loftier goals than wallowing in his fetish. It's also not hard to see how Tanukichi has gradually become drawn towards her and away from Anna, too. In fact, the most satisfying scenes in the episode (and maybe the whole series to date) are where he finally openly admits that he's falling in love with Ayame and has come to enjoy the dirty jokes, too. And the icing on the cake is that Ayame is not thrown by this at all. They are starting to make the signs of a great couple.

Against all of this, the actual plot is almost academic. Following Kosuri's betrayal, Tanukichi and Ayame scramble from the scene, only to discover that White Fabric has taken their hostages to Zoshigaoka High School. With help from insider Saotome and after conning Anna and her minions into helping, they invade the school, free everyone, and duke it out with White Peak, then make a big speech before departing. All seems to be said and done until, in the epilogue scene, Ayame gets some kind of alarming message. So what crisis will that set up for the final episode?

Whatever that may be, it may now actually be worth anticipating.

Rating: B

SHIMONETA: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist is currently streaming on Funimation.com.