Sakura Diaries #2

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65 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
12/05/2000

Everyone knows what it's like to be stupid in front of a girl. You've all heard about my experiences with the anime t-shirt at a party, we've all gotten a little tipsy and spent an hour and a half drawing flow charts in the air showing a disinterested girl who's too polite to shoo you away all the benefits that would come with a quick bout of sexual release in your parent's bedroom upstairs. There's nothing wrong with that, sometimes those are just the curveballs life throws at you. The point is you learn from your mistakes and the NEXT girl you try to sleep with you figure out that flow charts won't work. I've got the inside scoop for you guys, it's all about pie graphs.

Touma Inaba, however, hasn't progressed very far into the realm of seduction though...and it seems like he's not destined to move too far. Everyone knows how one's sexual activities start, someone gives you a pity fuck while you've both had too many Jello shooters at a party and the now de-virginized man lies about that being his first time and moves on his way. Someone needs to inform Touma of this. The boy needs to stop betting to win and try betting on "place" once in awhile. And thinking on it, the idea of horses isn't necessarily an inappropriate image for one's first roll in the hay.

However, until someone is to step in he'll keep dogging after the girl he can't have when the girl he CAN is just as attractive and only slightly more gross. This is all said in a Japanese context, of course. If they can make cartoons about people pooping on each other for fun then I'm sure sleeping with your cousin can't be too much of a social taboo. I say go for it Touma, and leave the consequences up to the girl's angry father and his well worn belt. For a piece of pie so sweet, I would gladly take whatever beating would be required. However, I am not Japanese and so I have no real desires to sleep with anyone of a familial relation. But oh well, that's just the way life goes.

Touma, as has been discussed, shares none of that reluctance though. He finally gets clued into the fact that Urara is only too happy to let him pound her sweetmeat and this opens new branches of despicable behavior for him. Now, I might not be the kind of guy who's all sugar and sunshine to women...but at least I'm honest about my intentions.

Unlike Touma, who intends to use his young cousin as a stepping stone to show the leggy Mieko how accomplished of a lover he is. Now let me be the first to say, that's just mean. A girl's first time is something not to be wasted on guys like me and Touma. However, once that sacred barrier is broken there's no reason to have any qualms about sleeping with whomever wants it. Virginity is like an "Under eighteen" night at a club and people like us have to be content with looking in and hoping they get those few scant moments over with so the real fun can begin.**
Fortunately for Touma, instruction comes in his prep school mentor Akimoto. A man who no hopeless virgin should be without, Akimoto provides insight otherwise not available to those who need to understand what the world is all about. A man wise past his years, his sole purpose in life is to cause trouble to the prep school administrators more concerned about acceptance rates than they are their students. One could really learn a thing or two about "what's what" from Akimoto. Though I don't know how useful the going price on drugs and what grade schools have the best looking underage girls would be.

All the same, Sakura Diaries is more solid of a show than its racy sexual themes would imply. I would go as far as to say that it's the best "romantic" anime I've ever seen. It was really 'this' close to getting a 4 on my completely meaningless rating system. The strength of Sakura Diaries lies in the realism of its characters. While the show does tend to exagerate, at least nobody's throwing atomic punches like they're going out of style. I'd much rather watch a man fall on his ass through his own clumsy devices than by some 95 pound girl's "Mike Tyson special".

We've all been Touma at one point on our lives, so give the guy a break...the mistakes he's made are the mistakes we've all been through. He, just like all of us, only needs to learn that the trick to such things is to not try so hard and understand that sometimes someone's third place horse is the best one to trot in your winner's circle.

Just as long as nobody knows you slept with the ugly chick from your drama class. There's settling, and then there's letting people know you settled.

**I'm not a pedophile. Seriously.