diy episode 2 discussion
previously: episode 1 thoughts
episode 2 starts out very strong, with a whimsical dream sequence where serufu loses purin because of the bench, which seems to foreshadow the next scene at the bus stop where serufu finally tells purin she's joined up with the diy club. naturally, purin doesn't react positively. she makes the equivalent of what would in any other type of show be a villain speech, talking about how she's gonna bring about the "fourth industrial revolution" and the "technological singularity", all so that nobody ever has to "do it yourself" again. 
this is why i say the show is a bit heavyhanded at times. she strikes a determined pose, the bus doors close, and then it's all neutralized by this wonderful moment where the bus moving takes her by surprise and throws her off-balance.
purin spends basically the rest of the episode putting both her hands up against windows and pouting while watching serufu & co. from a distance. as a matter of fact, i'm pretty sure serufu's nickname for her "purin" comes from the japanese onomatopoeia "puripuri", which means "angrily" or "in a huff". i didn't catch it last time, but in this episode purin actually corrects serufu twice and insists that she call her by what i assume is her real name, "miku". thanks to hatsune miku, i know that you can write the name "miku" using the characters 未来 that can also be read as "mirai", which means... future. sasuga.
but why is purin acting like this? as one of my instructors used to say while patting the book we were currently discussing, "it's all right there in the text", which in this case is video. let's rewind for a second, and go back to the very first scene in which purin is introduced, in the first episode. what is that in the background, right behind purin? computer, enhance... ah, it says JELLY! obviously purin is JEALOUS of serufu and all her new friends having fun together in the diy club! they really are so careful with the details in this show. it's all right there in the episode.
i thought the bench would be a long-term project and serve as the catalysis for the restoration of serufu-purin relations, but surprisingly they managed to bang it out and get it done already. purin won't be convinced to betray her ai overlords that easily, however, and actually REJECTS the bench, shutting the window. a later scene suggests that perhaps she did want the bench and it was merely a face-saving rejection she hoped serufu would disregard and press through, but it backfires as serufu takes it at face value. this is what can happen if you're always behind barriers or retreating to them as purin does in this episode. seriously, no wonder she is always all alone in that bus. even the one girl she hangs out with at school with the crazy hair and annoying verbal tic seems about ready to jump out the window and join the diy club in their uncle ted shack down below.
i have to admit though, while purin's behavior does seem a bit irrational, i can kind of get where she's coming from to some extent. i've always been a bit of a contrarian, so when minecraft got really popular in my middle school, i spent a lot of time railing against it and had a lot of my reputation invested in my firm anti-minecraft stance. i continued this even after secretly picking up minecraft and then becoming probably the biggest minecraft-addict in the entire school, excluding myself from everyone's conversations about it with complaints while secretly wishing i could be a part of them. all my friends were having fun playing on a server together and talking about it at school, but because i was too ashamed to come clean, instead i would go home and spend six straight hours playing on a server with random australians. good times.
but seriously, it's better to just swallow your pride and go "do it yourself", unlike purin. not everyone is gonna have somebody like serufu who keeps working doggedly to get you to do so despite countless rejections, you need to be "yua serufu" yourself. take the chance when it comes, and accept the bench.
