The following contains spoilers for Episode 11 of Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie, “Not Just a Cutie” now streaming onCrunchyroll.
The penultimate episode ofShikimori’s Not Just a Cutiewas interesting, but suffered from a lack of focus. The series falls back on old habits, but also attempts to give more towards something that has been lacking throughout the series – some real insight into what drives Shikimori as a character, and how she came about.
Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie’s titular character is finally explored in the eleventh episode of the series, in a way that goes beyond her relationship with Izumi, or her charisma. This episode, titled, “Not Just a Cutie” is messy, but offers a more profound look into Shikimori than ever before.
RELATED:Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie Episode 10 Review – The Athletics Festival
Big Brother’s Little Sister
In recent episodes, it came to light that Shikimori’s strained relationship and awkwardness in interactions with Inuzuka is down to her unconsciously associating him with her older brother. Their manner of speaking and demeanour are aspects which Shikimori unconsciously noticed as similarities, causing her personality to revert to little sister mode when interacting with Inuzuka. In previous episodes, it was also apparent that Shikimori, despite acting nonchalant, abrasive and sarcastic towards her brother, greatly wishes for his approval, but also doesn’t want to be treated like a child. Like any other youngest child, Shikimori molded her personality and interactions with the world around her on the people who are closest to her – her mother and her older brother.
Shikimori and her older brother head out to the mall because she wants to find something cute to buy for an upcoming date she’s planning with Izumi. Since the craziness ofthe athletics and culture festivals, Shikimori and Izumi haven’t had much time to hang out alone. While walking home from school one day, the two stumble upon an amusement park commercial which piques their interest, but Shikimori is especially pumped to have the kind of date shown in the commercial.
Despite rifling through various outfits, Shikimori doesn’t actually find anything she likes, and the series doesn’t make it fun with a montage of Shikimori trying out various styles. She finds her older brother being spoken to by two beautiful women, but struggling due to being rather shy despite his handsomeness and overall “cool” demeanour. Shikimori shoos them away, prompting a sibling back-and-forth that ends with her older brother saying that she is “sonot cute”. This leads into an oddly-placed flashback to Shikimori’s childhood, practicing karate at the same dojo as her brother. After defeating an upperclassman in kumite (hand-to-hand combat), Shikimori is praised by the other beginners at the dojo, but her brother seems irritated, telling her that it is very uncute of her to be good at everything she sets out to do. Despite the biting remark, her brother isn’t resentful or angry, but proud ofhis little sister’s uncanny abilities.
The flashback continues, showing parts of elementary school Shikimori’s personality and interactions with the world. At that point, people were already beginning to revere Shikimori for her athletic ability, but at school, it became part of an edgy, tomboyish image. Younger Shikimori also sported younger hair than her high school counterpart, which is possibly an attempt to create a visual nod towards the element which actually becomes the episode’s prevailing, and most important theme: Shikimori’s journey with femininity. While it does grapple with it somewhat, it feels lacking in nuance, cheap, and particularly because the series continues to place Shikimori’s greatness in her athletic ability, the placement of said femininity in opposition to the feminine beauty she seeks to embody is particularly bland and squanders an interesting element that has been Shikimori’s big deal since the very beginning.
Finding Shikimori
At school, Shikimori’s fellow girls could count on her to intervene whenever the male students got out of line or attempted to bully the female students, and garnering this kind of fear and respect on one hand; and admiration on the other, became something that would tinge Shikimori’s relationship with reality into the future. The aggrandisation of Shikimori from her early childhood, particularly when it came to athletic pursuits, continued into middle school as she climbed the ranks in karate. Shikimori’s older brother, after seeing his sister’s immense progress in the sport, decides to quit karate to move on to other things, but also in order to bring Shikimori out of the habit of living her life chasing after him, and following in his footsteps.
Her brother realized long ago that Shikimori can do anything she sets her mind to, and that she was living a life of emulation, taking after himself and their mother. In middle school, a friend of Shikimori’sintroduced her to romance manga, which led to one of the most important discoveries in her life to date. Seeing the effect of love on the characters of the stories she read, Shikimori decided that she wanted to find love for herself.
This being the first thing the character actually decides to do based on their own desires and personal journey is particularly important, as it fulfills her older brother’s wish for her to find something she’s truly passionate about and doing because of that passion. Desiring a romantic connection for herself becomes the anchor upon which Micchon Shikimori bases the most profound and guided change in her personality – she decides to invest time into “cultivating her femininity”. Middle school Shikimori becomes obsessed with changing herself, from image to demeanor in order to become the kind of cute manga girl who falls in love with a kind, handsome boy. By the end of the flashback, we see Shikimori’s appearance has changed.
Meeting the Prince
Shikimori test drives her aesthetic transformation during the high school entrance exams, where she notices a boy and a young man looking intently at a tree. The boy reveals that his exam ticket got blown into the tree, and he has no way of getting to it because it is so high. The old man leaves to retrieve a ladder, but at his pace, the boy will be late for the exam. Shikimori promptly forgets her “ladylike” demeanor and appearance and offers to climb the tree. Before Izumi can even protest, Shikimori works her way up the tree, retrieves the exam ticket and descends without issue. She is; however, embarrassed at the boorishness of her behavior, and thinks that the boy has surely lost his respect for her. Lamenting the early demise of her ladylike high school debut, Shikimori leaves the scene without realizing how grateful he was.
On results day, the two bump into each other again, with Izumi promptly thanking Shikimori for risking herself in that way to help him, but she’s embarrassed about how she may have presented to him. Izumi explains his propensity to misfortune, and explains that he is glad that she managed to climb the tree without getting injured, especially with him around. Moved by his exposition, Shikimori asks the young man for his name. The flashback ends with Shikimori coming to understand that her anxieties regarding the next date with Izumi aren’t about clothes, but about Shikimori herself. The episode ends with Shikimori getting ready for her date, and trying on new lipstick that her older brother got for her, fully accepting ofher growth into a cute someone.
Undercurrents Explained
While clumsy with its execution, the episode aims to reveal crucial elements about Shikimori, and help the audience piece together how the series-proclaimed “coolest girlfriend ever” came to be. What makes the episode clumsy is the unfocused attempt to give insight to Shikimori as a character, while using characters like her mother, brother and Izumi, as well as a throwaway character from her past to help bring everything together. The episode begins with a flashback to Izumi’s middle school era, showing brief moments of happiness before descending into misfortune because of illness and a missed school field trip.
The flashback is unannounced, and it is left to the audience to realize what is happening, which decreases its effectiveness. The point was to introduce the relationship between Izumi and Shikimori long before it was a concept, as if the characters were both wishing for someone like the other long before they even met. It doesn’t come across very well because of the strange cuts between the current and the past, and the episode’s strange beginning in Izumi’s past in a way that would make one thinkhe’d be the episode’s star.
Shikimori’s visual changes from childhood while they do convey the idea, associating her short hair with a lack of femininity was a particularly clichéd direction. While it makes sense in the context of Shikimori’s outing with her brother, the episode’s segueing into the flashback was lacklustre, but despite the episode’s struggles, it proved to be another decent episode for the series.
MORE:Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie: The Biggest Differences Between the Anime & Manga So Far
