Mekakucity Actors - Episode 02/Detailed Summary

Detailed Summary

 * The episode starts with Momo Kisaragi, a popular pop idol and sister of Shintaro, who is hurrying on her way to school. On her way, several people try to start a conversation with her, but she cuts them off instantly, in order to arrive on time. She temporarily stops as she is offered a sample of a new dumpling recipe, yet quickly makes up her mind and continues to run towards school. She begins to worry that at this rate she will end up being late again, despite leaving the house one hour early. Shortly before catching a bus that would bring her to school in time, her eyes turn red and suddenly the attention of every person in the area falls on her. Naturally, she is unable to reach the bus before it leaves the bus stop she was heading to again.


 * Arriving at school, she meets her homeroom teacher, Kenjirou Tateyama, who tells her not to worry about being late, then goes on by teasing her about how she would be able to get good grades on the upcoming tests without his help either way. Momo denies such a thing, stating that she is not confident about this matter at all. Kenjirou lightly hits her head with a book he is carrying and tells her not to be so negative. As response to that, Momo tells him how confident she is about acing the last history test, where she revised everything that would be on the test and filled the complete answer column. Fortunately her teacher has brought the results of this very test along. He says that it seems like she casually does things mere mortals are not able to do, making Momo believe she did incredibly well on the test. However, it turns out she managed the complete opposite by reaching a result of only 2 points out of 100.


 * The two of them are standing on the roof of the building, Momo being extremely devastated about her failure. Kenjirou tries to cheer her up by saying the worse a student is the more loveable they are, but he is confused about some of her answers on the test and asks for an explanation. To his question what the "520,000-530,000" next to an important person of history she wrote means, Momo responds that she thought she was supposed to put his combat ability into the space, since the other people mentioned on the sheet had numbers next to them as well, and how in a manga this man would be a powerful character. Silently judging her words, Kenjirou goes on by asking why she wrote "You will become a page in my dictionary!" next to Napoleon, receiving the answer that she believed something like a victory catch phrase belonged there. Sighing deeply, her teacher demands to know where she got those answers from. Momo laughs nervously and tells him she skimmed the entire textbook and then ate it. At first, Kenjirou does not quite realize what she said, but then hits her head with his book several times, scolding her because she cannot memorize information with her stomach. Trying to defend herself from her teacher's attacks, she chips in with a comment about how this is possible in the mangas she had read. Following that, Kenjirou ends his attempts to hit her with a final attack on her head, then asks why she has such a huge obsession with mangas anyway. Although Momo states that it would be more fun like that, Kenjirou has to remind her how bad her grades currently are and tells her that if she was to fail on her make-up test as well, she would go back to being a first-year student again.


 * A metaphorical scene shows Momo sitting alone in a classroom with only cassette tape recorders as teacher and other students talking to each other, then switches to a a school cafeteria, where Momo asks the would-be students if she could join them on their table. One of the voices responds that these seats are unfortunately only for first time first-year students, so she cannot sit with them. The voices around her start to giggle viciously, and every school supply is shown to have "First Time Only" written on them.


 * Scared of that happening, Momo promises her teacher that she will study hard and do whatever it takes for her to prevent that. Satisfied with this statement, Kenjirou says that extra classes are done for the day, but she could manage to succeed if she focuses on the content from the books until the make-up exam. That being said, he hands her a pile of preparation guides from him and her other teachers. He assures that even a monkey could ace the test by studying these over the Obon festival vacation. Momo fears she cannot manage to even read over all these papers during that time, making Kenjirou tease her about going back to being a first-year student again in that case.


 * The next scene shows Momo in a greenhouse, drinking some soda while sitting on a bench. She rants to herself how she was late to school again today in the end, was given an additional load of school work and was excessively scolded by her teacher. Shortly afterwards, she receives a call from her manager, who tells her that a drama she was booked for cancelled, so it has been decided that she could have the day off to spend with some friends. Momo tells her manager that she actually has no friends, but she gets the day for herself either way. Her manager additionally tells her not to make any public appearances, although everyone in the agency is amazed by her ability to catch people's attention. Momo, on the other hand, thinks of it as a curse, but the manager tells her otherwise, saying that it is a gift everyone is jealous of. The call ends when another call for the manager comes in.


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