げんしけん: 二代目Chapter 118 Manga Review
Genshiken Nidaime chapter 118 Manga Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Keiko decides to spice things up by saying that if Sue gets her final ring toss, Madarame should give her a kiss. Sue says that if she makes it, she’ll open up a doujin shop back home like she always wanted. She misses the shot.

With that, the group leaves Sue and Madarame alone, where Sue spouts off a line from Laputa and Madarame answers in kind. Sue switches to K-On, and Madarame knows the line and starts talking about it. This causes them both to stop short and become embarrassed. The two walk to the holy spring, which is supposed to help with beauty and love, so Madarame suggests they take a sip. Sue is hesitant, but takes a drink as Hato and Yajima arrive. Hato suggests that Sue open up to Madarame rather than relying on anime catch phrases because Hato’s turn is next.

Hato suggests they join the others in the temple ground’s cafe, so Sue takes Madarame’s hand and pulls him away from the area. Sue leads them somewhere secluded and attempts to say something with her own words. After failing at this, she yells the “Osuwari!” command used by Kagome in Inuyasha to make Inuyasha sit like a dog. Madarame sits as a blushing Sue still cannot say anything. As such, Madarame starts talking, citing her blushing and noting it started during the campus festival when she kissed him on the cheek. He felt that her kiss was to tease him, but then later, she started blushing whenever she’d see him.

Madarame wonders what caused Sue to change her attitude, then remembers that Saki saw Sue and probably took it as the real thing. Thus every time Sue saw Madarame, she’d remember that and blush. She nods furiously, so Madarame pulls out his phone and suggest calling Saki to say it was all a prank. Seeing Sue’s reaction, Madarame realizes he was wrong.

Sue finally finds the words, saying that the kiss was originally intended to look like and be a joke. However, for Sue to even be able to play that kind of joke on Madarame meant that he was special to her and didn’t scare her. It took Saki seeing her kiss Madarame that made Sue realize her feelings. Since she didn’t want to believe she was having such feelings, she tried pushing Hato and Madarame together, to no avail. With that, Sue says she loves Madarame.

Madarame is shocked by this, but doesn’t flee. Instead, he realizes that with this whole harem situation, this is the first time anyone has confessed to him. Before Madarame can answer, Sue puts her hand on Madarame’s mouth, asking him not to give her an answer to her confession until after Hato’s turn. He agrees and then she makes one final request. Returning to the ring toss, with the others having returned, Sue is nervous to make another toss, but gets confidence when Ogiue tells her a quote from Slam Dunk. Sue makes the toss and gets her kiss on the cheek from Madarame.

Now, it is time for Hato to be with Madarame, Hato surprised at what has just transpired.

Thoughts/Review:

Kyaaa! I finally got the Sue chapter I have longed for, lo these many years. It was worth the wait.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again here. When Sue was first introduced in Genshiken, I really didn’t care for her that much. All she did was spout anime and manga lines, but otherwise didn’t contribute much. (She was a used as a plot device to help explore Ogiue’s character in volume 9 of the manga, but that’s about it.)

With Genshiken Nidaime, Sue became something more. Kio-sensei kept her as the American gaijin student who spouts anime and manga lines, but he also made her more interesting and funny, to the point to where Sue started stealing scenes she was in. It was a great move on Kio-sensei’s part to elevate Sue’s character like that.

Despite that, Sue never spoke with her own words. Most of the time we saw her on screen, she’s either quoting a famous anime or manga line, or she’s giving a look (or other such action) to indicate what she wants. She never speaks with her own voice. This was fine until the Madarame Harem arc started, at which point, I started wanting Sue to say what was really in her heart. When Sue visited Madarame’s apartment in chapter 105, I was hoping for her to open up, but we didn’t get that.

With Genshiken Nidaime chapter 118, while I knew we’d get a Sue chapter, I really hadn’t expected Kio-sensei to do much of anything different that he hadn’t done before. Man, I’m so glad he didn’t go that route. Instead, he found a way to cause Sue to open up, that starting from Hato’s shot across the bow. Hato’s salvo wasn’t quite enough, but having Madarame suggest calling Saki to say that Sue’s kiss was just a prank did, and I loved it.

When Sue opened up and stated that Madarame was special to her and didn’t scare her, I thought back to volume 9 of Genshiken, when the Genshiken group took the visiting Sue and Angela to the temple to ring in the new year. She called him “Nekoyasha” back then (the parody term for Inuyasha) and had him “sit” so she could ride his shoulders and see over the crowds. After reading chapter 118, I now know why she felt comfortable enough to do this. Of all of the former Genshiken members, Madarame was the most hardcore otaku. Sue is the most hardcore otaku member in the current Genshiken. So it is no wonder she found herself so comfortable with him as a guy. And it is no wonder why I love this ship.

Of course, the icing on the cake was having Sue say that she loved Madarame. That was so awesome, I couldn’t believe it. Neither could Hato, who’s turn to get out of the harem comes up next chapter.

That being said, while the Sue x Madarame ship is sailing, will it sail far?

As time has gone by, Kio-sensei has made his Spotted Flower manga appear to be the canon sequel to Genshiken Nidaime. In that manga, the Madarame character ends up with the Saki character. I believe Kio-sensei has stated that the Saki x Madarame pairing was what he wanted for Genshiken, but it didn’t work out there. With Genshiken Nidaime, he could make that happen.

I noted with keen interest that Madarame appears to have Saki’s number in his phone. He offered to call Saki when he thought Sue wanted to get things cleared up over Sue’s joke.

As much as I like the Sue x Madarame pairing, I sadly don’t think Madarame likes Sue any more than he likes Keiko, Angela, or Hato. I think he liked being confessed to, but in the end, I think that he’s still hung up on Saki. So after he rejects Hato next week, I can see Kio-sensei delaying Madarame giving an answer to Sue for a while. We’ll see how it goes though.

In the end, I really loved this chapter as Sue finally got to speak with her own voice and confess her love for Madarame. Now if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to bask in the afterglow of this chapter. 😉