August 22nd, 2016 
AstroNerdBoy げんしけん: 二代目Chapter 126 Manga Review
Genshiken Nidaime chapter 126 Manga Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Sasahara calls Ogiue regarding Madarame getting to talk to Sue, but since he’s not doing a good job, Saki takes the phone. Saki explains that they are going to have Madarame confess to Sue and that Saki will take the blame for any problems. Ogiue asks if Sue wants to take to Madarame. Sue blushes hard as a result and hugs Ogiue. Ogiue realizes that Sue has been clingy due to a broken heart and puts Sue on the phone.
Madarame doesn’t know what to tell Sue, so Saki tells him to just ask her out. He is flustered, so he resorts to an otaku line which Sue responds to. Madarame uses another line, pleasing Sasahara. Madarame then shifts to his own words, telling Sue she’s moe, but gives it an otaku twist. Why he likes her best over the others in the harem. Further, he cites how he felt Saki was moe, so maybe to him, love and moe aren’t that different. After saying his piece, he asks her out.
As everyone waits, Sue responds by quoting the famous Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro line from Zenigata. However, she modifies the ending so that she references the time that Ogiue used the line to refer to Sue having borrowed Ogiue’s panties and having taken them back to America. Ogiue yells at Sue for this while Madarame tells the others around him that he didn’t steal any panties.
Sue gives the phone back to Ogiue. Ogiue gets permission to tell Madarame that Sue will go out with him. Madarame hands the phone back to Sasahara, but now wonders what to do since he planned to move. Saki assures him that his new location won’t be a problem. With that, Saki considers her work to be done and leaves it up to Madarame. With that, she orders an adult beverage (Nabeshima). Ogiue calls Ohno to let her know what happened.
On the day of Madarame’s move, he’s joined by Rika, Hato, and Yajima. They see him off and wish him well. Rika marvels at Saki’s ability to resolve the harem situation when Rika couldn’t do it. At the train station, they meet Sue, Ohno, and Ogiue. Ohno suggests that Sue to with Madarame. He’s worried since this is moving day, but Ohno believes he should make this massive change in his life with Sue at his side. With that, Madarame and Sue leave to catch a train.
Thoughts/Review:
As a long time Sue shipper, Genshiken Nidaime chapter 126 made me feel quite emotional.
You know, when Sue first appeared in Genshiken, I didn’t care about her as a character. She was this weird, devious seeming, somewhat obnoxious character. A lot of that came from how Kio-sensei drew her.
Then in Genshiken Nidaime, she stopped being obnoxious. Part of this was a softening of Sue’s character design. Part of this is that Sue didn’t seem devious anymore. I began to like Sue at that point, even liking her otaku quote spouting. She suddenly became a scene stealer though. That was unfortunate because it caused Kio-sensei to only use her in a limited fashion and not explore her character and allow us to better understand her.
Despite a lack of character development or exploration of Sue, I began to like her a lot. When the Madarame harem stuff started happening, I jumped on the Sue x Madarame ship right away. Yeah, a part of me wanted the Saki x Madarame thing to happen because it would make Spotted Flower canon and that would be a rather unique thing in manga storytelling. But that’s a tale for another time.
I know there are some who believe that Sue was just sprung into the mix, but I disagree there. While I acknowledge that Kio-sensei did little with Sue, lest she steal the manga, Madarame did see her as a girl during Sue’s and Angela’s winter visit to Japan at the end of Genshiken. Madarame was the only other person Sue opens up to other than Ogiue. Sue even rides on Madarame’s shoulders. Madarame was very aware of Sue as a girl during that time.
As to Madarame’s and Sue’s conversation, I liked it. They communicated in the way they know best. It would be nice if Sue communicated more in her own words, but as we saw from the most recent Spotted Flower chapter, that’s just never going to happen. Still, it does make for amusing moments, especially when Sue quotes things from the Genshiken manga. 😀
Without realizing it, Kio-sensei created the ultimate weeaboo character. For those who don’t know, weeaboo is the insulting,degrading term to describe (mostly white) folks who are so deep into Japanese culture, they adopt a lot of Japanese things as part of their life. Dirty little secret is that folks who might be triggered if the “N” word was used against a black person or the “F” word used against a homosexual will have no problem using the “W” word against those who are way into Japanese culture. 🙄
That being said, I doubt Kio-sensei even knows what a weebaboo is. As he described Sue, her initial character type was that of an otaku who doesn’t say much with a hint of yuri and a whole bunch of blushing. So the weeaboo concept wasn’t in his mind when he created Sue. Yet that’s what Sue would be called if she were a real person. I guess I just find that interesting.
While Saki may have been the one to get the ball rolling, it amused me that Madarame’s confession to Sue had her confused and even a bit put out at times. It is interesting how much she still cares for Madarame to go so far as to set him and Sue up as a couple. The chapter indicates she’s done, but lets be honest, as much as Saki has done for Madarame, she’d be back to help him again if the need arose.
So, does this mean that Spotted Flower won’t be canon? This chapter does nothing to dissuade that. However, if Genshiken Nidaime went on for a while, we could have seen that journey would have taken. Maybe if Spotted Flower goes full time, we’ll see that journey. That way, Kio-sensei would have the best of both worlds – one where Madarame ends up with Sue (and they live happily ever after) and one where Madarame ends up with Saki.
Ogiue looked pretty cute in this chapter, happily blushing over Madarame’s confession to Sue. Then there was her call to Ohno. I got a chuckle over that.
Anyway, it is nice to see how all of the current members of Genshiken saw Madarame off to his new life with Sue. Their happiness is pretty much what I felt. 🙂 It is too bad that Sasahara and the others couldn’t have been there as well, but I suppose work comes first.
In the end, Genshiken Nidaime chapter 126 is a touching yet fun chapter, allowing Madarame to finally hook up with Sue. One one chapter to go.
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Yeah it was a good chapter. Now let’s see what the final one has in store for us.
Yeah, I really wonder.
Ohhh… the feels…. Very good chapter. In fact, I love it. Everyone knew that Sue was the perfect girl for Madarame. But Saki is the queen (on your face! Rika), so this was the best way, as it even came with the official blessing…
I must confess that I didn’t watch the Cagliostro Lupin’s Movie. It is on my (long) list, but I didn’t followed the series either (Just some dubbed chapters on the local TV cable when I was a kid)… So I didn’t read your reviews on it either Astro (sorry, maybe on the future). But I did recognize the quote (It is really famous after all) and loved the hint on the panties episode on the first manga.
And I really liked the Evangelion (TV end) reference, that could have been the best way to see off the Otaku couple at the station.
At first I thought that the Nabeshima drink was a reference to Nabeshin, the “avatar” of that weird director who dresses as Lupin and likes to hijack the plot of the animes under his hands.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I remember the anime as the place were more strongly showed Madarame looking at Sue as a girl. And the anime version of Sue was at first more “moe” to me too haha.
As I said before, the author knew how to quell the fans. Who can be against Sue x Madarame? Not me, and I don’t believe any Genshiken reader could. I believe that the people that liked Genshiken and are still following each chapter are that kind of people (but it is just my opinion). And to give us a sample of the “what if” future, Kio Shimoku made Spotted Flower (Looking at the firsts chapters it didn’t look as a possible future to Genshiken, but later it started to have references of Nidaime and the characters design changed to look more like Madarame and Saki).
Until I knew that Nidaime was ending, I was expecting to both series to unite, showing an unique and wonderful writing ability of the author. Maybe it will not be like that, but as everything goes, it can be still a possibility, but I don’t personally think of that as strong as before.
I personally wanted to Spotted Flower to be canon, but this is great too.
I just hope that the closing curtain make me clap my hands. But this penultimate chapter serves as the proper ending too right? So It was a fun ride.
Just one thing: I still want to see Rika taking a full spoon of her medicine. But it only can be if Sandaime ever happens.
It was that movie that made me start watching the various TV series, specials, OVAs, and other movies. It is a classic for sure.
I’d forgotten what that was about until I looked it up and got to see a screen capture. 🙂
That’s possible.
Yeah, it is a bummer that we won’t get to see Genshiken’s story continue.
Ditto. 😀
Random thoughts:
Looking back, I think I was one of the last to realize how Madarame felt about Saki. I’m not sure – do I remember correctly that one of the most “in your face” moments (specifically, where I realized he had feelings for her) was when she cosplayed as a relatively moe character?
It’s the most adorkable thing I’ve seen since Chuunibyou. (^_^)
I agree fully about the impetus behind it, but differ on a nuance. You helped me realize why I react to it so strongly: It’s reminiscent not of “n*****” or “f*****” (which I grew up hearing & despising in the South), but of “n*****-lover” or “race-traitor” (ditto, & on the receiving end). The one insults someone for a genetic factor irrelevant to the attacker. The other attacks the very premise of “humanity” versus hundreds of thousands of “us” versus “them”s. And in this case it condescendingly insults the whole notion of America as a hybrid melting pot, where many cultures blend together and the “best” traditions bubble to the surface.
I disagree – I think she’s already getting some comeuppance. “Living well is the best revenge”, and Madarame has the potential to do just that. (^_~)
To be honest, I don’t think Kio-sensei really properly set up Madarame’s feelings for Saki until the cosplay event. (To be fair, he really didn’t properly set up the Ohno x Tanaka much nor the Sasahara x Ogiue relationships.) Before that, Madarame didn’t really show what I would call signs of being attracted to her. He did things that he thought would drive her away, but I didn’t take that as him having feelings for her.
Of course his reaction to seeing her in cosplay made it clear he felt something. In my mind, Saki became a 2D girl come to life in 3D for Madarame. I don’t know if Madarame looked at the character Saki cosplayed as his “waifu” or not, but however he saw the character, it was close enough.
Sadly, the notion of a melting pot is rejected today in favor of segregation, otherwise known as “multiculturalism.” 🙁
Woah, woah, woah….”weeaboo” is NOT the same as using n*gger in the derogatory to describe an African-American person. WOAH. Perspective adjustment. Weeaboo is not about slavery.
It’s closer to calling someone a “retard” as an insult, but still closer is “nerd” (which was a very insulting term not long ago). It’s not racist, homophobic, or sexist. It is a way to share second-hand embarrassment at someone whose acting immature and pushing their fantasies upon others (who frankly have a right to reject that). I was a bit of a weeaboo once, many of us were.
The term is more akin to “scrub” or “wigger”, it describes a person whose behavior is undesirable and/or over-the-top gung-ho — a person perhaps in need of a reality check. Madarame is not in denial of being an otaku, and that too is a dirty word (especially since the day it lead to a famous murder in Japan). However, I do agree, that weeaboo would be a fair way to describe Sue; a person clearly lacking in social skills and indeed obsessed with anime to the point of living in her own dreamworld. I like Sue. At times she, like many of the others, reminded me of myself, but I hadn’t considered the word “weeaboo” before. Good point on that! Sue was a great use for the writer to keep fandom refs in the mix even as the comic turned into a bit of a soap opera.
But please, weeaboo not the same as the other slurs you’ve mentioned or the (violent) repression and naked (legal) prosecution our minorities have felt. That’s a step too far. And I say that as someone exhausted at the insane levels of politics that I see in fandom already.
It’s been a long time since I enjoyed a comic as much as Genshiken, that is to simply enjoy a comic and LEARN about others and myself through it without feeling like someone was preaching at me. It was entertainment. It was why I picked them up in the first place and stuck with them as everyone sneered their lips at comics and worse…ADULT comicbook readers. It was good writing, fearlessly different, original in many respects, sub-culturally insightful, and made honest developments of its characters (enough to get you to like characters that you may have initially disliked).
With just the right amount of fan service! heh.
My point is that slurs are slurs and that it is OK to hate some groups and not OK to hate others ’cause reasons. 🙂
Genshiken was great. Genshiken Nidaime was good, but not as good. I would have enjoyed learning more about the characters than what we got. But oh well.
However, the most common way I’ve seen “weeaboo” used is by otaku describing other otakus. I actually WAS called a “Jap-lover” (decades ago) by non-fandom people or simply seen as weird.
Being a weeaboo is like being a Jesus freak, you’re just so over-brimming with love for this media that you feel encapsulates everything you’d like to see in reality that you can’t help and act obnoxious. You simply hardly talk or think about anything else. You believe everyone could love this stuff if they just gave it a chance! You have not learned proper compassion or consideration for other people’s feelings (or you’re just that blinded by your own agendas) or learned to curb your enthusiasm. For example: even among otaku, it’s considered poor manners (if not harassment) to run up to people and pretend to “butt f*ck” them because that person is in cosplay as your OTP. That’s a weeaboo thing to do. We all certainly hope they didn’t realize how insulting it could be to invade someone’s personal space without permission like that.
Again, the objection tends to come from feeling like someone is forcing their desires upon you. It’s not entirely dissimilar to a guy whose a perv acting like a creeper — it’s unwelcome, it’s anti-social, and it’s annoying. The difference here again though, is being a weeaboo is harmless. Simply LIKING anime or manga is not enough to denote being a wee-a-boo. Anymore than wearing black automatically makes you a goth.
I do take the point though that it could be used as a way to express disdain for cultural appropriation (as terms like “wigger” and “oreo” also exist). However, I do not think that is exclusively how it is used.
At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter if someone goes all nuts about Japanese culture or the like. But in my experience, the weeaboo term is used to slam anyone who even likes anime/manga, or who uses an anime avatar online.