Episode 12 wraps up the school festival. If you want to read my thoughts on the events of the episode, you’ll find them as part of my analyses on Chapters 81 and 83. At this point I’ll have to assume 82 will be covered in Episode 13 or just not at all.
So with all the cosplay this episode, particularly from Ohno, there was a hefty amount of fanservice in the most obvious sense. This was magnified by the fact that they combined two disaparate chapters together to make it an almost “cosplay-themed” episode, but amidst all that more overt fanservice the anime actually added a little something for the Ogiue fans in particular.
This image is actually an anime original, and though it’s just a single frame it communicates a lot of intimacy and perhaps even eroticism between Ogiue and Sasahara. Ogiue never ever, ever has an expression like that, with the wry and suggestive smile as well as the sideways glance towards Sasahara who’s more tacitly responding in kind. The message this image communicates is that Sasahara likes what he sees out of Ogiue, and Ogiue is pleased that he likes that. While you might think that this is me reading too much into it, given their interruption by Sue previously, there’s no doubt in my mind how we’re supposed to interpret it.
However, if you want something that I consider fanservice that probably no one else does, it would be another anime-exclusive moment:
A Go Go Curry parody!
As long-time readers of the blog might know, I am a huge fan of Go Go Curry, and what’s more, the very first Go Go Curry I ever ate at was one in Akihabara. Though there’s no way to tell if the one Madarame is at is the same one that introduced me to the wonders of Kanazawa-style curry, I’d like to pretend that it is.
Really though, Episode 12 of Nidaime actually combined two of my favorite things, Ogiue and Go Go Curry. On some level I have to rank it pretty highly, albeit at a fairly shallow level.
The Mawaru Penguindrum merchandise also helped.
OGIUE MANIAX 
One thing though — am I just forgetting somehow, or are the final couple of scenes with Madarame and Hato an invention of the show? I looked back through previous chapters and couldn’t find either of those scenes, so I assume the show is covering more ground by combining themes from several parts of the manga into new interactions and dialog.
I could be misremembering, of course, but I’d be curious to hear your thoughts if I’m not!
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It’s definitely something added to the anime, and I think you might be right in what they’re trying to do, but at the same time that plot thread is still unresolved in the manga. I wonder if they’re trying to go for a more decisive conclusion, though in that case I do worry a bit about the anime getting a little TOO original.
The best I think they can do is a cliff notes-esque compacting of later events, because if they show the events of the manga as-is, it’s just going to leave the viewers with more questions.
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It seems like one of the themes of this season (and one that’s very front-and-center in the way in which the story has been adapted) is a series of “This doesn’t happen in real life!” tropes that nevertheless seem to be part of the lived experience of the characters, particularly Hato and Madarame. Hato’s dismissal of his Fujoushi-sempai’s suggestion that he might be living out the “I don’t like men, I just like YOU” trope from BL manga is looking to have been a little premature; the otaku jokes about Madarame going the “harem route” seem a lot less silly now that at least four members and/or satellites of Genshiken actively have crushes on him. If this were any other show I’d assume that neither of those themes would ever really GO anywhere as the story wraps up, but then, I would never have expected an actual “on screen” confession between Madarame and Saki, either, as the trope of unrequited, unspoken love is such a common one, particularly in stories for men. Is the ultimate theme of Nidaime, “Here’s how ridiculous anime tropes resolve themselves in the lives of real people?”
I, too, am left wondering how far afield this adaptation is going to go. The anime will resolve before the manga will, by a huge margin — how meta is this going to get? Will the show itself end up being a commentary on adaptation and alternate narrative conclusions (as in, say, the various FMA incarnations)? Is show!Hato just trying to scare Madarame into action, in alternate version of what’s playing out in the current manga chapters?
The problem of adapting an ongoing series is always such an interesting one!
And I won’t be able to watch the new episode until Monday night! UGH!
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>At this point I’ll have to assume 82 will be covered in Episode 13 or just not at all.
I’d say not at all. This season should end at manga chapter 86; I’d think it a sensible story arc closing. And cramming (almost) three chapters in one episode looks enough already.
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Ah seeing an anime run quicker than the manga. Brings back memories of FMA. In any case I finally saw the raw scans for chapter 92 and, man, do I wish I could read japanese because this chapter has so much dialogue. Then again most of the chapters do with the only exception I remember being the one where Ohno gets Saki to cosplay before she graduates.
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13 is out.
Whoa! Quicker the the manga, indeed!
And, おわり
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Translation for chapter 92 is already on Mangareader. Huzzah!
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