When it comes to the structure of the story, the second half of A Couple of Cuckoos has been nothing but one experiment after the other. There’s an episode where you almost get a perfect balance between the drama and the comedy, but there’s also an episode where there’s no balance happening whatsoever.
And then there’s also a unique take such as what happened in the last episode. Rather than aiming for a balance, they decided to downplay both the drama and the comedy instead. And it works really well, actually. So let’s see how this episode will turn out. Hopefully, it will be as entertaining as the last one.
RELATED: A Couple of Cuckoos Episode 19 Review - We Have A Brother?
Previously On A Couple of Cuckoos
The focus of episode 19 is about Erika’s elusive brother. Yes, apparently there’s a missing brother named Sousuke Amano in the picture. What’s even crazier is the fact that Sousuke is also supposed to be Nagi’s biological brother. If it’s true, then it means both Erika and Nagi were actually born with their own siblings. Erika with her sister, Sachi, and Nagi with his brother, Sousuke.
Erika was actually quite close to her brother, sort of like the relationship between Sachi and Nagi. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Sousuke suddenly went missing from his family’s life. It’s unclear whether the parents know the reason behind Sousuke’s disappearance, or at the very least, they never talk about it to Erika.
When she talks about it, Erika expects Nagi to be shocked. But apparently not. At that time, Nagi was completely unfazed. Not only that, he even volunteers to help look for Sousuke. And the first course of action is to talk to Erika’s father. Unfortunately, Erika’s father keeps dodging Nagi’s barrage of questions about Sousuke. Not only that, he even posed a counter question that leaves Nagi speechless, which is “What do you think about marrying Sachi instead?”.
I Wanna Be An Adult!!!!
Episode 20 picks up the story directly after Nagi gets back from his unproductive meeting with his/Erika’s father. At this time, there’s really no additional information about the whereabouts of Sousuke Amano, or if he even exists in the first place. Since Erika already suspected that the meeting would turn out that way, she simply shrugged it off and moved on with her life.
However, Nagi is completely disturbed by this development. And just like what we’ve seen from the other episodes, when something is bothering Nagi, he will be unable to think about anything else for the next few days. Sensing that her biggest rival, and potential love interest, is in a bad headspace, Hiro immediately acts and asks Nagi to go on a date. Needless to say, it is an incredibly effective move. Even if it is for a brief moment, Hiro manages to lift-up Nagi’s mood.
At around the same time, however, Erika’s father met with Sachi for their regular exchange of information. Sachi refused to ask him about Erika’s supposed brother, so he decided to go on the attack and ask Sachi the same question that he posed to Nagi in their last meeting, “What do you think about the possibility of you marrying Nagi?”. The story moves on for quite a bit after that, but once again, we have a cliffhanger on our hands.
Standard Drama, Standard Comedy
As mentioned in the first part of this review, the two main aspects of A Couple of Cuckoos are the dramatic romance and the hilarious comedy, just like any other Romantic Comedy story. A good drama can move your heart and even make you cry, while a good comedy can make you smile and laugh. So finding the best balance between these two conflicting emotions is the key of a good RomCom.
There’s nothing dramatic nor hilarious in this episode. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Because in a way, this is an even more subdued version of the story structure that was used in the last episode. And that one turned out quite alright.
That being said, on an ordinary day, this approach will lead to a catastrophically boring episode. However, since we are currently in one of the most dramatic arcs in the entire series, the decision to downplay the whole thing actually allows the comedy to seep into the drama. The result is an episode that manages to convey the drama while preventing it from being overly serious at the same time. Sure, this approach means it won’t be a memorable episode, but at least it is still a rather enjoyable episode to watch.
Where Is This Going?
In the review for episode 18 of this series, we talk about a concern regarding the pace and the direction of the story. And this is me echoing that same concern all over again. We are already in episode 20 now, which means if everything goes as planned, there will only be 4 episodes left. And yet there’s still barely any progression happening to the story.
Sure, the news about a potential brother is quite exciting, but introducing a new problem this late in the game while still not addressing the main issue regarding the romance and the potential Harem is actually a strange, and arguably a bad decision. Not to mention this episode doesn’t really add anything new to this brother issue either. So in a way, this is a wasted episode.
We don’t know whether there will be a season 2 of A Couple of Cuckoos in the future or not, so wouldn’t it be better to at least wrap up this first season in a nice, coherent, and rather complete manner? Yes, the original manga is still ongoing right now, but remember how popular Bleach was back in the day, and yet they only animated the final season more than 5 years after the manga ended. Talk about giving an annoying cliffhanger to the fans. So hopefully the showrunners can at least provide a meaningful end to this series.
In terms of the story structure, episode 20 is a more subdued version of episode 19. This approach has the potential of creating a boring episode, and yet the show runners somehow manage to turn it into a rather enjoyable episode. Unfortunately, we are already this deep into the series, and we still don’t really know where the story will go. Hopefully the next episode can find a way to provide a bigger and clearer picture for us.
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