げんしけん: 二代目Chapter 123 Manga Review
Genshiken Nidaime chapter 123 Manga Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Genshiken members Yajima, Rika, Sue, Ogiue, and Ohno are in the club room discussing doujinshi, which causes Ohno to reflect on how things have returned to normal. Hato shows up, having changed into women’s clothing. Having decided to explore what it means to be fudanshi, he shows Ogiue his latest BL storyboard. Ogiue and Rika read it, where Rika is actually embarrassed because it is so hardcore. This shocks the other members, who’ve never seen this side of her.

Ogiue decides she needs to start thinking about a new series. Rika remarks on how this is Ogiue’s fourth year, so with Kuchiki graduating, Genshiken starts fresh. On cue, Kuchiki shows up, troubling Hato and the girls. Kuchiki doesn’t like the attitude, but explains that he’s just there to gather his belongings. He goes to the doujinshi cabinet and starts removing a lot of the manga there.

Ogiue snaps, believing Kuchiki is stealing club doujinshi and not taking his own stuff. She cites how Sasahara explained the Genshiken tradition of putting classic, ero doujinshi in that locker, going back years. Kuchiki confesses that the doujinshi he’s taking aren’t his, but he delightedly explains how the men of Genshiken have borrowed some for use at home. Ogiue still denies Kuchiki’s attempt to take the doujinshi home, frustrating him since Genshiken is filled with fujoshi members.

Ogiue remembers when Sasahara graduated, he was looking through the locker for one of his purchased titles. As such, Ogiue accuses Kuchiki of stealing doujinshi from the club for a while. Busted, Kuchiki laments the thought of returning the doujinshi as Ogiue texts Sasahara. Sasahara responds with the name of the title he’s missing and the Circle who produced it. Kuchiki denies having taken it.

Madarame shows up, having been cleaning his apartment, where he produces several doujinshi manga he’d borrowed in the past, but for which he’d forgotten to return. One of them is the doujinshi manga that Sasahara was missing. Kuchiki goes off on having been falsely accused, whereby he’s reminded that Madarame came to return doujinshi, not steal them. Kuchiki begs to borrow Sasahara’s doujinshi, even if it is just to take to the bathroom down the hall, which causes Ogiue to snap again. However, when she calls Sasahara, he agrees to let Kuchiki borrow it, providing he returns it by graduation.

Thoughts/Review:

You know, it really is nice to have a fun Genshiken chapter like this. It is even better since the story of this chapter centered around a classic Genshiken topic — H doujinshi manga.

Kuchiki has never been a character I liked. He’s always been creepy and weird, but it was through him that there have been some amusing antic stories told by Kio-sensei in Genshiken. So I found it poignant when Ohno reflected that these kind of antics would soon be over as Kuchiki is about to graduate. Unlike Madarame, Kuchiki is not a character that I see returning to the story.

Also, when it came to Kuchiki, he was the most shameless of the characters that migrated over from the original Genshiken manga. That certainly came through in this chapter, where’s he’s begging to borrow an H doujinshi so he can go to the bathroom and fap to it. *_* Quite frankly, if I were Sasahara and was into H doujinshi, I wouldn’t want Kuchiki “meditating” to my manga. I mean, just thinking about how nasty that is almost makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

I loved the flashback to Sasahara’s graduation when he was in the club room with Ogiue. While Sasahara and Ogiue are obviously still in a relationship, it is kinda sad to me that Ogiue still refers to Sasahara by that family name, rather than his given name Kanji. That suggests that while they may be a romantic couple, complete with sex, there’s still a gulf between them. It would be neat if Kio-sensei did a chapter where we got to see Ogiue and Sasahara outside of the club setting, where they could be seen being more intimate, starting by addressing each other by their given names.

Madarame shows up to help complete the old school feel of the chapter. I wasn’t surprised to see him since he hasn’t moved yet. What will be interesting is to see how Kio-sensei decides to handle Madarame down the road. If he wants to connect Genshiken Nidaime with Spotted Flower (which I do believe is the ultimate aim), then he has to find a way to continue to keep Madarame involved in the manga somehow, even if he’s gone for extended periods of time.

While there was a lot of fun in this chapter, hearkening back to the old Genshiken (club and manga), Kio-sensei is still setting the table for the new Genshiken club that is about to form. There was that cute moment when Hato and Yajima made eye contact and blushed. That made me smile and continues their path to their story in Spotted Flower.

Ogiue (and Ohno after she decided to repeat a year of school) are now fourth year students. Ogiue is looking to get her next real manga series going. I hope we see that in the upcoming manga. (It doesn’t have to be to the degree it was when she was first breaking into the business, but just following her path by mention here and there would be nice.)

I don’t know if this is setup or not, but I did find it interesting that Rika was embarrassed by the hardcore nature of Hato’s work. That’s a side of her character we’ve not seen before.

The last tag of the chapter reminds us that Rika’s sister Risa is coming and will certainly be joining Genshiken. That could provide the interesting Hato x Yajima x Risa love triangle element.

I hope Genshiken gets a new male member to the club, one who’s a regular otaku, but also one who’s kinda like Kousaka in that he doesn’t look like a normal otaku. If he catches the eye of the other girls in the club, that would make things interesting as well.

In the end, Genshiken Nidaime chapter 123 was a fun chapter, reminding me of the fun chapters from the original Genshiken. At the same time, the way is prepared for the next phase of the Genshiken club and manga. I’m looking forward to seeing that.