Teasing Master Takagi-san Season 3

Episode 6

You'll have to excuse me, readers, if my thoughts on Teasing Master Takagi-san are in any way jumbled or incoherent this week. I only just got back from an emergency visit to the doctor, on account of the incredibly startling noises and bodily thrashing that I experienced as I watched “Culture Festival”. After a thorough analysis of my vitals and medical history, the good doctor eventually diagnosed me with an acute case of “Being an Embarrassing Weeb that Gets Way Too Invested in Sappy Romance Anime”. He told me that the condition was incurable. The best I can do at this point, he said, is pray.

This was inevitable, of course, given the state of Takagi-san's third season. Each and every episode has been assaulting our senses and our hearts with such an unholy degree of unadulterated cuteness that the show has risked violating any number of international laws about cruel and unusual punishment. After the last episode nearly folded me in half with its pitch-perfect depiction of adolescent romance, I was hoping for at least a few weeks of recovery time before we actually got to the kids' big cultural festival, but this anime, much like its namesake, is a creature that knows nothing of mercy or restraint. From the moment that it dared to put Takagi and Nishikata in the middle of a “kids put on a cute little play” story, Teasing Master Takagi-san knew full well what kind of damage it was capable of inflicting, and it went ahead and pulled the trigger anyways.

We'll get to “Romiya and Juliot” in good time, but I should take the time to exercise what little faculty for rational thought I have left to note all of the excellent stuff that we get before The Big Scene. Sanae going along with Kimura's goofy improv during rehearsals is another great moment for the character, and the Girl Squad gets a fun little interlude involving a blind-folded eating contest that seems to be just as dangerous as it is delicious. Hojo and Hamaguchi also get a cute scene where the former finds out that the latter is working in a male maid café for the festival. I'll be honest and tell you that I had completely forgotten who these two were since the last time they popped up, but nevertheless, I'm glad that their own blossoming romance is progressing along as well. Good for them.

Also, the haunted house interlude is one of my favorite sketeches between Takagi and Nishikata of the whole season. Yūki Kaji continues to kill it with his performance as Nishikata, and the boy's doomed contest against Takagi gets to show off Kaji's ability to perfectly balance Nishikata's temper and boyishness. Plus, I can't help but laugh whenever Nishikata's peeved growls start to echo the tiniest hints of Eren Jeager (though let's be real, there's no way in hell that the Rumbling would be happening if Takagi lived in the Attack on Titan universe. She would have embarrassed Eren into submission long before he started playing War Crime Bingo).

Okay, but seriously, I have to write about The Real Sappy Shit, now, and I genuinely don't know how to approach it other than scream fanatically, “Did you see that!? Did you see how freakin' cute those kids were!?!?”. I mean, come on, Takagi-san was already pushing it with Nishikata's botched totally-not-a-rooftop-love-confession bit, because you all know how much I've loved this season's running thread of Nishikata slowly coming to terms with how much he does, in fact, completely adore Takagi. Then the show turned the screws even tighter when it showed how Nishikata was visibly upset at not getting to play the role of the prince opposite his would-be rival, and how badly he wanted to believe that Takagi was looking at him when she professed her love for Kimura's piggy Prince Juliot. She totally was, too, which makes it so much cuter, and god damn this show for making me have to check my blood sugar levels so regularly.

Then it happens, the moment we all predicted, but nonetheless were waiting for: Kimura went a little too whole hog with the eating contest, which means that it's Nishikata who rushes to save Takagi from slipping on a prop, all decked out in his princely garb. The look on Takagi's face when she realizes that her dream scenario is coming true was already sweet enough to put me in cardiac arrest, but that's when the show goes in for the kill. Readers, I don't even know if I could accurately describe the sounds I made when Nishikata improvised his way to the end of the play by confessing his love, nor can I recall what exact manner of flailing I was doing with my limbs when Takagi hugged him back and called him her prince. Even if I could, some things are probably better left unwritten. If you must, combine that one GIF of Kermit the Frog flipping out with the sounds of the front-row audience of any given Taylor Swift concert.

I know I said that last week's episode was the most perfect version of Takagi-san that I could image, but Past James is a charlatan and a fool, and he should not be taken seriously by anyone. This is, far and away, the best that Teasing Master Takagi-san has ever been, and if you told me that this was a full-on series finale, I would be perfectly satisfied. The fact that we get another half-season and a movie on top of it all is just icing on the cake.

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Teasing Master Takagi-san Season 3 is currently streaming on HIDIVE.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.