Amidst the flurry of Nanoha StrikerS subs (which I’m beginning to regret having stopped blogging) another subbed episode of Doujin Work appeared, which along with Zetsubo Sensei, is one of the most neglected series this season in terms of fansubs.

Episode Rating: 7/10

Najimi sits beside Tsuyuri on the train with a baitingly large smile on her face, after a few seconds of Tsuyuri not noticing, Najimi wonders aloud whether Tsuyuri’s not curious about why she’s smiling so much. Tsuyuri gives in and asks Najimi about her smile, to which she replies that she won. Tsuyuri’s illogical thought process somehow turns that into something about a Columbian Horned Frog, but Najimi is talking about her rivalry at the last doujin market where she outsold her rival, even though it was only one copy to Hoshi.

With that, we’re given a little background on Najimi’s rival, Nidou Kaneru, who is a normal office working lady by day and an amateur doujin artist by night. Her drawings aren’t the greatest and her books don’t sell very well, much like Najimi, but she continues to pursue her passion happily.

Najimi continues her bragging spree with Justice and Sora, but Justice is too busy being his normal pedo self to notice. But Najimi is just glad that he’s returned to his normal self after she fully explained the reason why she went to a hotel with Hoshi. As for Justice, he continues to be wary about Hoshi, but is glad that he managed to give him his 500 page manga and hopes that it will guide him along the right path.

The three of them arrive at an art store where Najimi picks up a book that apparently has illustration techniques to surpass a rival, and by a twist of fate, Kaneru shows up looking for the exact same book. The two fight over it for a while, Kaneru trying everything from illogical reasoning to a game of rock-paper-scissors to try and get the book. When Justice shows up, Najimi finally decides to give Kaneru the book because she can always learn from Justice. When she hears this, Kaneru asks Justice to teach her as well, to which he humbly agrees to, much to Najimi’s frustration.

And so Justice, Najimi, Tsuyuri and Sora gather at Kaneru’s house for a lesson only to have a half asleep Kaneru answer the door rambling on about her stuffed bear being a soldier of justice.

After apologizing for answering the door half asleep and for anything embarrassing she may have said, they start the lesson. After Justice sees a sample of her work and not so subtly hints that it sucks, he concludes the problem is that Kaneru and Najimi have trouble drawing with a 3D perspective, which prompts Kaneru to fold her drawing into an origami paper crane. Justice shows them an example of what he really means, and using that as inspiration, everyone is instructed to draw a page so he can critique their work.

After they’re done with the lesson in doujin, Tsuyuri suddenly points to the window, simply saying “bear”. Kaneru looks over exploding in a red blush when she realizes she left her bear print underwear out in the open to dry. She reaches for the pantsu, tearing the curtain down in the process, when she goes to fix the curtain she knocks over a plant, and when she goes to pick up the plant she trips and sends her wastebasket and its contents flying all over the place. In short, Kaneru is a clutz.

Thoughts

This series is on a downhill slide, the jokes are becoming stale and the characters are still two dimensional (no pun intended) and boring. As if we didn’t already have a crappy doujin artist in the cast, they decide to add another one. Kaneru is basically the same character as Najimi, except she’s clumsy and even more airheaded than Najimi, a feat which I didn’t think was possible in the world of Doujin Work.

The jokes in Doujin Work really don’t have any variety. It boils down to either Najimi being her usual stupid self, Tsuyuri being her usual stoic and blunt self or Justice being his usual lolicon self. Either that or the jokes go on such a tangent that they fly completely over my head, like the whole bit about the Columbian Horned Frog. I’m positive that I’m missing a cultural reference or maybe a really obvious pun, but in either case it came out of nowhere.

I hope Doujin Work has more to offer in the future than “JUSTISUUUU <3...SOOOORA <3" for 15 minutes at a time, though I'm not really getting my hopes up. If series that are more fun to blog and actually get consistent subs in the coming fall season, it's likely that I'll stop blogging Doujin Work altogether. I apologize in advance to everyone watching it, yep, all 10 of you.

~ Shirukii ~