We open with a bunch of executives listening to Keigo’s latest song, while his manager/agent looks worried. Keigo’s disgusting work ethic has finally come back to haunt him, and he’s now reduced to shopping his one Masaki-inspired song around the labels.

Masaki goes to the doctor to be counselled about her medication choices. I’m surprised that her parents aren’t required to be with her, as she’s 17 and the age of majority in Japan is 20. Meanwhile, the sleazy reporter has caught up with Keigo again. This scene is just an excuse for Keigo to show his bad-boy side, as he grabs the reporter by the collar and warns him not to write anything about Masaki, with specific reference to her HIV status. Ah Keigo, don’t you know you’ve just shown your hand? Now the fella knows what your weakness is.

Masaki is in a record store when she spots her erstwhile best friend. In her haste to get away, she knocks over some CDs, and her friend comes to help her. She wants to apologize for her previous behaviour to Masaki. Whee, score one more for Team Masaki!

Back in the recording studio, Keigo angers the keyboardist with his diva attitude (“You on the keyboards” is NOT how you get a good performance out of people) and thus takes over the keys himself. Kaoru goes to pour him coffee. Slattern! I know your intentions are impure! Nothing happens, as Keigo turns the topic back on himself by exclaiming that finally, the music is flowing from him. Yet he looks unhappy.

In the Kano residence, Satoru passive-aggressively expresses his disappointment in his parents by leaving the table when his father returns. Okaasan finally breaks the silence by asking her husband if he’s not bothered by what his daughter blurted out about his wife’s affair. She has decided to start over with him, for the sake of their ailing daughter who only has them for support now.

The ailing daughter, meanwhile, has called Keigo to tell him that she’s going back to school. His songs have given her the courage! Oh, and would he please let her know when she can buy “that song” which he wrote for her. Not for a long time, if his excursions to the record labels are any indication. Heartened, he goes to get a cigarette, and sees the newspaper item on Masaki. Let me guess what will happen next: He will cut off contact with her to protect her, and she will be hurt and confused, bla bla bla.

She makes her mother beam by heading off to school, and it appears her favourite mode of transportation is running. Either she’s been truant so long she forgot the bus schedule, or she’s really a long-distance runner. The class falls into silence as she walks in. The chalkboard in the background is covered in girly drawing of flowers – do they have so much time to do things like this before class begins?! Camera cuts to Masaki’s pigtailed friend, who gathers up her courage to go greet her and offer her notes. Someone else knocks Masaki’s books off her table and then quite ironically refuses to touch them to pick them up when the friend confronts her. Women – so damn inconsistent.

Asami (the friend) then delivers a shrieking morality lesson to their classmates. Those of you who are accustomed to the cutesy high-pitched voices used in anime probably wouldn’t like this show, where the women are shrill, bitchy and generally quite realistic. “Japanese girls are cute”  – I’ll show you Japanese girls!

Okaasan is at home ironing when Masaki returns to find her mother reminiscing over “that man’s” handkerchief. She apologizes to Okaasan for making her break things off with that man, but Okaasan hides it all under a smile and goes to answer the doorbell. Eeep! It’s a bunch of teenage females! They’ve come to apologize after Asami essentially scolded them all. I swear, they are wearing eyeshadow and mascara to school. “Let’s go to Harajuku to buy swimsuits!” Sure, they’re all chummy now, but wait till they find out that she REALLY is HIV-positive.

On the way home, they get to talking about “compensated dating” and how they do it out of boredom. Masaki starts fiddling with the straw of her drink, they ask if she’s still upset about the rumour. They wouldn’t have asked her out if they thought she had AIDS! See, I told you. Fair-weather friends.

Keigo’s agent/manager has found him a company that’s willing to sign him, and Keigo uncharacteristically shakes his hand. Well, it’s the least he could do for the man who’s partly responsible for keeping a posh roof over his head! Just as they’re happily celebrating, the freelance reporter rears his ugly head again. While his manager deals with the issue, Masaki appears. Just how she not only knows, but gains entry to these places, is beyond me.

Keigo is frantic! He needs to keep Masaki away from the reporter, and while the money-grubbing dirtbag is occupied, Keigo leads Masaki out to the carpark. She says she wants to come out as HIV-positive, and he dissuades her, but of course. His career comeback is on the line! Once more, Masaki runs home, this time along a vehicular bridge. Very nice.

Keigo’s manager is now upset at the shit Keigo’s landed himself in. Apparently the reporter thinks Keigo is the one who infected Masaki with HIV. Gah! In the meantime, Masaki is met by Hibino at the school gates, and he proceeds to serenade her tunelessly with an ukulele. They visit the absent Asami, who has a broken arm from being pushed down the stairs. Plus she’s receiving malicious prank calls saying she has AIDS from “compensated dating” too. Such is the price of being on Team Masaki. Hibino remains her staunchest peer-age cheerleader, as he tells her that her life is too short to waste on getting angry over such abuse.

Keigo’s comeback is set, as the record company gives him a verbal agreement for a contract. But his manager hands him an envelope containing (presumably) money to keep Masaki quiet. Cue shot of Keigo leaving. Masaki returns home to take her medication (stored in a Sanrio container heehee) when her previously silent father speaks up. The school has decided to punish those involved in “enjo kosai”, and the specific punishment is to be unveiled later. How will the school even know who’s doing “enjo kosai”? It’s not as though the girls advertise!

Masaki’s father has to come to terms with the fact that his daughter was one of them. Was he not listening at the hospital? Sheesh. He then bans her from school, saying he will inform the school that she quit because of the bullying. He’s only this angry because he wants to save face. But Masaki’s as much of a firebrand as Otosan is revealing himself to be. She refuses to be kept in the shadows just because of her status. He’s arguing from the societal perspective (as expected of a collectivistic culture) while she is arguing from a humanist perspective, that her life still has value to her.

Masaki skips school to avoid being “punished”, and spends the day listening to the radio. That’s where she finds out that Keigo has been out of contract for some time. Next scene, she’s dressed up and running out of the house. They meet by the river, things are said, and she asks him to send her someplace.

“Someplace” turns out to be school, where a prim lady is lecturing them on the evils of “enjo kosai”. The girls are squirming a bit, but so are some male teachers! Ahem ahem. You mean even THEY don’t get free services from their students? Oh, the girls will be suspended for 3 months. Wow, this is right before summer vacation, so does that mean they get extended time off from school? You have to admire Masaki’s guts for attending school while dressed in her going-out clothes. As the ceremony ends, the students are imperiously commanded to bow, but if you look carefully among the crowd, one doesn’t.

As the girls start filtering out, Masaki clenches her fists, and Keigo watches from the door as she storms forward. Doesn’t he realise how much danger he’s in? Any moment now, a girl could notice him and he’d be stampeded! Having bravely taken the stage, Masaki is now at a loss for words. Eventually she delivers an impassioned speech about how she got infected with HIV, and how life means so much to her now that she’s going to die. Prematurely. It’s probably at this point that Keigo will finally give up the last remnants of his heart to this girl who’s showing so much zest for life in the face of death. That’s his type, you know.

Awww, she loves him loads! At least, that’s what she’s saying into the microphone. It’s okay, Keigo! You can love her back! And with a parting note on the preciousness of life, she departs. You can hear the shoes squeak as the girls fall back to give her a path, as Asami and friends go to embrace her (I think). Keigo leaves as the girls eventually aggregate around that core, in a move which is meaningless once you get more than 2 deep around Masaki.

As Keigo reaches his car, Masaki calls out to him, he hugs her and says she did the right thing. Then he drives off, leaving her standing there. His brusqueness can be somewhat forgiven, as the episode ends with him being besieged by reporters, now that the story about his “enjo kosai” relationship with Masaki has broken. He could just categorically deny it, you know, since Masaki was never paid, and why would someone as handsome as Keigo, of all people, need to pay for sex? Come on already. As for the HIV rumours, all he needs to do is submit his blood test results. But why pander to the morbid curiosity of the masses? Leave them clamouring at your doors for the scraps that they will live on. And so, we have finally approached Act 2: Conflict.

Previous episode: Masaki’s family breaks down around her, she sees Kaoru kissing Keigo, and decides to throw herself in front of a train.

Conclusion of her suicide attempt: It’s only episode 5, so of course she doesn’t die. Hibino saved her and she survived with only a cheek contusion and brain concussion. Her family are called to the hospital, where she FINALLY reveals that she’s HIV positive. Her father slaps her and blames her mother for not taking good care of the children. Oh yeah, thanks dad, and where were you all this time?

At home, the family grapple with the gravity of the situation. Satoru, Masaki’s brother, informs his ignorant parents that with treatment, she’ll be able to live a few years more. Oh, whee. In the meantime, Keigo has been informed that his contract will be terminated tomorrow. Some drunken woman pops into his house with a bottle of champagne. Firstly, doesn’t he lock his doors? And secondly, the drunken lady is Kaoru, who’s not-so-secretly in love with Keigo. I say RED ALERT right now, send her to a hotel and let her dry out her drunken ass there.

At least she’s good for something, as in her drunken candour, she challenges Keigo’s no-songwriting policy. Finally he admits it: he’s out of ideas, dry, no inspiration. It’s not that he won’t, it’s that he CAN’T. His girlfriend’s death depressed him so much he went into workaholic mode to forget the pain, but he’s tired now. Nope, sorry, that doesn’t pass muster. Especially since his next scene involves partying with some bimbos poolside.

Masaki’s having a marginally better time in hospital. Hibino comes to visit, and she tells him about her encounter with Loser-Type. Then Hibino has to be a dumbass and bring up Keigo, and Masaki doesn’t want to talk any more. She returns to her room, where Okaasan is peeling fruit. Ever the efficient mama, Okaasan has already done her research, and she reassures Masaki that with medication, she’ll live a healthy life.

Masaki rips the veil off her mother’s denialist view by stating the bald truth: Her parents will outlive her. And twists the knife further by reminding Okaasan of her infidelity. “I don’t wanna go home!”

Apparently that’s fine with Satoru, because at this point he enters and says he doesn’t want her infecting him at home, with his exams so near. As he continues in his ignorant rejection of the HIV-positive, Okaasan slaps him for probably the first time in his life.

In some swanky Tokyo office, Keigo puts his seal on the termination agreement. Japanese people don’t sign things, they put their stamp on it. Kaoru interrogates him about his nocturnal activities, which are really none of her business, when Hibino calls out to Keigo. He delivers the news of Masaki’s suicide attempt, along with a side dish of burn: “Aren’t you responsible for that?”

Masaki is forlornly looking at a picture of Keigo and Kaoru in a magazine, torturing herself with memories of what she saw, when the door opens extra slowly and Keigo pops in. She chucks the magazine at his feet, all the while shrieking at him for being a cad and leading her on. Then she slips into self-pity mode. “No one loves me, mama doesn’t love me, mama loves another man…”

Once again, it’s up to Keigo to play devil’s advocate. He tells her that she’s expecting to be loved because she’s ill, and attempting suicide is just a coward’s way out. “You don’t deserve to die when you’ve hardly even lived” seems to be his take on things. The war of words continues out in the strangely empty corridor, as Masaki counters that Keigo isn’t exactly living life to the fullest either. She has nothing to live for, whereas he still has his music. He walks away while she yells at his retreating back, “Your music gave me hope!” and other such things. Masaki shuffles back to her room in ridiculously unfashionable slippers, but it’s Keigo who’s kept awake by guilt.

It’s a new day at the hospital. Okaasan uses the green payphone to dial her lover, and Masaki catches her in the act. Loverboy assumes Okaasan has good news for him, but she quickly douses those hopes. Masaki turns away, and Keigo is shown neatly drawing musical notes on manuscript paper. This is how we know he’s not a real composer. If you’ve ever seen reproductions of actual manuscripts, you’d know they were a barely legible mess. His lackey appears at the door, bearing Kaoru’s message, and is told not to bother a working man. Poor kid, he can never catch a break. If your boss is working, you get told off, if he’s not working, your job may be in trouble. Meh.

In a kissaten, Loverboy is getting dumped. I don’t even know why Okaasan likes him, he has Spock hair and jug ears. He must be a REALLY good listener (pun originally unintended). She leaves money for her coffee and goes home to cook dinner. Whee!

20 million cigarettes later, Keigo has a new hit song. Or not, as Kaoru walks in on him tearing up manuscript paper, adding to the mess strewn all over the floor.  He looks like crap – but I still want his hair. Graah, the unfairness. He then exclaims that he wants to be involved with someone, like before. Oh? Once bitten twice shy doesn’t apply in the case of moody, handsome musicians!

“You wrote songs and fooled around for 3 years to forget about my sister,” Kaoru notes. Ah, so Masaki is to be another muse, in her own morbid way? Kaoru then offers herself as a stand-in for her sister. “I’m sorry. I can’t focus on the past. I have work to do, please leave.” And then he flips down the photo of his dead girlfriend. I think that’s as clear a sign as any. GO AWAY KAORU!

Back at home, Masaki’s brother refuses to share the hotpot dinner with her, preferring instead to eat rice with mayonnaise. Masaki echoes my sentiments as she tells her mother not to bother. Let him die of malnutrition, it’d be so ironic! The phone rings and Okaasan answers. Of course it’s Loverboy, and she slams down the phone and lies very very badly to her family that it was a wrong number. Masaki chooses this time to reveal to her dad and brother that Okaasan “is having” an affair.

She runs out of the house, with her mother chasing her, and into the path of a truck, which swerves to avoid them. Crazy women! They proceed to have a screaming match while still crouched on the tarmac. Masaki says her family’d be relieved if she died, and Okaasan slaps her for her inability to understand. “You are precious to me, you stupid girl!” is how I would have phrased it. Masaki’s having none of it, and runs off anyway.

Okaasan limps back home, where her husband and son are sitting stonily at the table. Man, they don’t even have anything to say to each other. Satoru runs upstairs – he will most probably hate women for the rest of his life. Masaki has wandered downtown, where she gets propositioned by some guy mistaking her for an enjo kosai, probably. A nearby breakdance group switches their boombox to catch some radio waves, and a familiar voice encircles Masaki in its velvety smoothness. Keigo has a new song! And he’s premiering it on radio, and dedicating it to a certain 17-year-old girl! Oooh. He precedes it with a long speech which I will summarise thus: I’m here for you.

Masaki shows off her marathon-winning style as she runs all the friggin’ way to the radio station, where she catches Keigo just as he’s about to get into his car. He puts her into a cab, tells her to stop relying only on him, and sends her home. He doesn’t intend to be mean – he isn’t her only ally, no matter what she thinks.

She comes home to her initials on a pillowcase, lovingly embroidered there by Okaasan. No doubt touched by this gesture, she confesses to her mother that she got HIV as a result of “compensated dating”. And then they have a sobfest. The next morning, Masaki cheerfully awakens and greets the day with an “Ohayou”. Miles away, Keigo receives it telepathically and exits the house – only to be greeted by a “freelance reporter” who has the scoop on Keigo Ishikawa’s latest squeeze, which could be interpreted as Keigo also patronising the “compensated dating” system. I smell a scandal brewing!

Previously on Kamisama Mou Sukoshi Dake: Masaki has managed to catch a glimpse of the elusive loser-type guy! What will happen now? Oh, and Keigo’s not infected. Whee.

Masaki catches up with Loser-Type just as he’s digging out the keys for his apartment. She is a vision of vengeance as she asks, “Remember me?” Then the guitar starts up and we’re once again watching Keigo run across the sands in the opening credits.

HIV testing is apparently not a big deal in Japan, as Loser-Type admits that he himself found out only when he was hospitalised for pneumonia. “Did I pass it on to you?” he solicitously asks. I don’t know what to make of Masaki’s stunned expression, or the upbeat little jazz number that starts up right about now.

Meanwhile, Keigo is being haunted by the ghost of Masaki’s last words, until the music stops on an “Aha!” note. Perhaps he got an idea for a song, but we’ll have to wait as we pop back in on Loser-Type’s apartment. And now for the grand reveal: Loser-Type tells us how he got infected! This is hilarious, you’d never know it from looking at him. He got involved with a gang. What, was he their accountant or something? Nah, I think maybe he did drugs or something of the sort.

The phone rings and Loser-Type lies to his mother that he’s busy with work, so he won’t be seeing her. So he hasn’t told his parents, and are we surprised? No, but this is the cue for Masaki to start thinking about telling her parents, and also the cue to switch to Okaasan putting Masaki’s abandoned birthday cake in the fridge.

Okaasan puts Masaki’s beautifully-wrapped gift on her bed, and in true mama style, starts clearing up her daughter’s room. While flipping through a book, she sees the graffiti left there by malicious schoolmates, including the one that proclaims boldly, “AIDS”.

Loser-Type, fulfilling his role as a pathos delivery device, tells Masaki how alone he realizes he is, and goes off to eat his medicines while Masaki looks at his photos, showing a life he can never return to. Conflicted, she turns to leave, and he grovels (literally) for forgiveness. Still in her vengeful aspect, she says that she can never forgive him.

A butterfingered lackey knocks a picture to the ground, and the camera pans away to show Keigo at the PC, while the lackey shows him cover art for the upcoming CD. We continue with the exposition of Keigo’s past as the lackey asks about the woman in the photograph. Keigo, seemingly without emotion, answers that he lived with her when he was a nobody. “Did you break up with her?” asks the silly lackey. Hello, you don’t keep pictures of your ex displayed on your piano, dungu! “She knew she was dying, but she looked at me and smiled.” Some foreshadowing on Keigo’s part here, or maybe just explaining why he finds chicks with terminal illnesses appealing.

Back at the Kano residence, Okaasan lays down the parental law by, um, asking where her daughter has been. As she’s pressing Masaki for information, Masaki lashes out about her mother’s infidelity. Oooh, tit-for-tat secret blowout! At breakfast the next morning, Masaki takes her dad to task when he says that she’s out till late. She points out that he stays out late too, and he counters by saying he’s entertaining clients. When she asks what kind of places he goes to, he cuts off the conversation. Hmm!

Masaki gets bullied again as she walks out of school, and while she’s busy screaming at their retreating backs, Keigo is sitting in his black roadster. Yum. His face tells us that he feels the long-unfamiliar stirrings of pity, sympathy, and of general caring about another person. Bereft of human friends, Masaki takes to feeding pigeons at the park. And then the Prince comes and scares away Cinderella’s little animal friends.

“Are you hungry? Let’s go eat ramen.” Now that’s getting your priorities right, Keigo!

Masaki’s a sharp tack though, and tells him (over ramen) to drop the sympathy act. He replies that she’s a strong person who won’t be crushed, and that she has puraido (pride). I love how there’s no Japanese word for this. “I have HIV,” Masaki reminds him, “I’m not normal! Don’t be with me!” In a scene scripted for awareness campaigns, Keigo replies, “It doesn’t change anything about you.” Then he picks out her cha-shu from her bowl and eats it. Aw lookit that! He made Masaki smile!

They stand on an overhead bridge and talk about their parents. Poor Keigo, his parents weren’t around for him, while Masaki’s parents just want her to be a good girl. She turns around to look at the poster ad behind them, which has… Keigo’s face on it. “That’s nice! I want it!” So they go down to where the ad people are pasting up the ads. “He looks cool,” Keigo comments without a hint of irony. The ad people pay him no heed. He takes off his sunglasses and continues standing there, and the ad man finally gets it. He points comically at the ad, while Keigo just kinda smirks.

Masaki’s standing watching this, until she sees Keigo’s hand, hidden from the ad man, giving her some sort of signal. She gleefully grabs a poster, and they make a run for it. Why, I don’t know. Doesn’t his record company give him posters by the carton already? They finally stop under a tree, she staggers a little bit, he catches her, and they don’t kiss. Instead he gentlemanly sends her home, and she says she had fun. Which is kind of a rare commodity nowadays for her.

“I’m so glad I can talk to you,” Masaki says. In reply, Keigo says she can call him whenever. Haha if Keigo were any less attractive, he’d just be her cuddle bitch, for her to run to when she’s feeling sad. Note she’s saying “I like having you to talk to” and not “I’m in love with you”. While they’re so busy smiling at each other, an unnoticed Hibino leaves the spot outside Masaki’s house where he was waiting for her. Then Keigo puts up the top on his convertible. Is this a symbolic closing-off of his feelings? Interpret however you like.

Masaki passes by Hibino anyway, and he hands her a gift while trying to be casual about it. But his curiosity takes over, and Masaki tells him that was the real Keigo and not a lookalike that she came home with. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?” “What! It’s not a crime!” and then Masaki runs away. Hibino then callously says that Keigo’s maybe seeing Masaki out of curiosity, which really gets her dander up. “You told your girlfriend about my illness!” And in this I think her anger is justified, as that’s what led to her bullying and ostracization. “At least Keigo is different!” Yes, for starters he’s an adult who has better things to do.

Masaki runs back to her room where she unrolls her new poster, which makes for a very nice floor rug. She demonstrates to us that it’s larger than life-size by lying on it and lovingly stroking the image. Heh. She must be in a really good mood, because she made stew and offered it to her brother when he returned from school. Her brother looks like a 10-year-old but speaks like a man of 40. After taking her parents to task, it’s now her brother’s turn. She laments that all he does is cram for the examinations, and he says that, well, that’s the way things are. When she challenges this, he walks off to be left alone.

Okaasan comes home and praises Masaki’s stew, then goes off to prepare the salad so they can all eat together like the happy family that they aren’t. Masaki decides it’s time to bite the bullet, and prefaces it with the old “I have something to tell you.” Okaasan too knows what’s coming up, so she wisely puts the china down on the table first. It turns out Okaasan has something to say, too! Upon hearing this, Masaki backs out and says she’ll tell later, her mum can go first. Haha!

After Okaasan is done, Masaki shocks her further by offhandedly saying, “Who cares, do what you want.” She too knows that “Otosan is a workaholic and boring”. As long as her family remains intact, Masaki no care! Ah well, and there’s the rub.

Back in her darkened room, Masaki retrieves her phone (complete with antenna-topper) and looks at it sadly, while saying Keigo’s name. The dude, meanwhile, is having to deal with an angry female singer whose career is being threatened by his lackadaisical attitude. The president of the company comes in and gives his hit-churning machine an ultimatum: Come up with something by tomorrow, or he’s out on his ass. Unfortunately, Keigo is an advocate of the 3rd way: Your way, my way, or Go Away. He says he’ll work when he feels like it.

On his way out, his phone rings. Compared to his greeting, her “it’s me” is a tiny, timid creature. She gets all clingy on him. “You’re my friend, you won’t leave me, right?” Then she realises how silly she’s being, and cheers up. And goes to sleep on her giant poster.

The next day, Masaki returns from PE to find her uniform in the wastepaper basket. She actually smiles, probably because: hey, this is the worst you can do? Peh! I’ll just call up my super-hot celebrity friend and whine to him! Only he’s not available on the phone. He’s gone to visit the grave of his former girlfriend. Bluff la, Japan has no more space for graves!

Kaoru joins him with a large and showy bouquet. “When your cell’s turned off, I know you’re here.” When he continues standing there, resenting the invasion of his private moment, she defends herself by saying “I want to talk to my sister sometimes too.” Boring scene follows where Kaoru tells him to get off his lazy ass and start working and loving.

Okaasan interrupts Otosan’s baseball match to tell him something. Namely, she wants a separation. Otosan swallows, then asks, “What?” She says after Satoru (their son) is done with exams, she would like a separation. Otosan demonstrates his ignorance by asking why she wants to split all of a sudden, and Masaki exits her bedroom in time to hear the exchange.

Otosan thinks working hard and giving her his pay fulfils his duties. Obviously, this clashes with Okaasan’s “listen to me” type of duties which she had in mind. Hearing her family structure break down all around her, Masaki takes to the streets. Meanwhile, Hibino is confronting his selfish, bitchy coworker, who ratted on Masaki out of jealousy, because she wanted Hibino all to herself. He hops on his bike to go away, far far away from this land of crazy women!

Masaki’s nocturnal wanderings have taken her to Keigo’s doorstep. She’s unable to reach his phone, he’s in a car with Kaoru… I smell potential misunderstanding! Yeah, you know what’s coming up. Cougar-in-training Kaoru takes the opportunity to attack Keigo’s face with her mouth. “Don’t tease me,” he says. “I’m not,” she replies. Kaoru li-ikes Keigo!

Masaki is standing near a convenient wall, so she turns her face away as Kaoru rushes past. But Keigo catches a glimpse of her in his wing mirror, and whips around in horror as the opening guitar chord jangles out. It’s a combination worthy of Dramatic Prairie Dog! The dungu sits there watching Masaki cry, then when she turns to run, he’s spurred into action. He leaves his car engine running, and decides to chase Masaki on foot. Not very clever, but this is Japan, the land of low crime, so I don’t foresee any GTA-type happenings in the next episode.

Masaki’s run for freedom is halted by a railway crossing, but Keigo’s lost her scent and is now gasping for air in the middle of a junction. The final 2 minutes of the episode are just rehashes of the most aww-worthy parts from earlier. The producers really know how to stretch a budget. At the last minute, Keigo seems to have an epiphany on her location, and starts running his heart out. Masaki decides to stand on the path of the oncoming train. How original. And CUT! Let’s find out what happens in the next episode.

We left our dear Masaki and Keigo at a revelation cliffhanger. What will Keigo do, now that Masaki has HIV? Let’s check in with the girl first.

The scene opens with her, sobbing in the doctor’s office. Man but I’m getting sick of this place. The doctor comes in and apologises. Whatever for? Well, they made a mistake! She’s actually HIV-negative! Hooray! She runs out and skips along the road, when she comes to a dead end. It’s a steep fall off the side of a building. And she leaps!

Back into her own body. Cheap “it was only a dream” shot! Masaki sits up in bed, picks up the magazine next to her and cuddles it to herself. Why? Because the magazine had Keigo’s face on it. Um, teenage girls can be quite silly la yeah? Flashback to the time she told him she is HIV-positive, and then we cut to a pool table scene.

Keigo pots the ball right into our faces, before some dumbass comes up to him and taunts him for not having written any new songs. Um, excuse me, but do men who listen to the romantic mush Keigo creates, actually hang out in these kinds of smoky, seedy bars? Maybe his girlfriend is a Keigo fan and she’s getting difficult to handle without any new releases.

Keigo’s response is to snort, pick up his whisky, and take a sip. Then throw it in the guy’s face. Eeee so girly. The guy grabs Keigo by the collar, and Keigo responds with a right hook to the guy’s face. He was conveniently still holding his whisky glass, so. Cheaterbug!

Other bar patrons pull the guy off Keigo (even though he deserved to get beaten up). He looks at his bloodied palm, with a piece of broken glass in it, and thinks back to Masaki’s confession. Cue bonus opening music video.

It’s morning, and Masaki bums around the house in her pajamas. Her father has just left to play golf, and her brother is busy mugging for tests and is not pleased by her pajama-wearing self. She refuses breakfast by saying she’s on a diet.

Keigo is having a party with his best friends Marlboro and Johnnie Walker, when Kaoru gatecrashes. She’s come to drag him off to the office, where they are awaiting his new song. He tells her to just give a young composer a chance and slap his name on it. Er no, Keigo, that’s called… well, it’s not plagiarism, but it sure isn’t honest! He says that life has become meaningless after his late girlfriend passed on. If you ask me, he seems to attract the dying types. Let’s project into the future. If he stays with Masaki until she dies, he will have had 2 girlfriends dying on him, which doesn’t seem to be the best cure for his “meaningless life” problem.

Kaoru plops herself down on the sofa next to Keigo, saying (essentially) “what about me, I helped you too!” Keigo suddenly pounces on her as if to kiss her, but his resolves weakens and he just stomps off, leaving Kaoru a sad, confused and rejected mess. (Can you tell that I’m not very sympathetic to her cause?)

Masaki has gone to visit her friend-with-benefit Hibino, to tell him the outcome of her test. He happens to be entertaining some bimbo, who overhears Masaki disclosing her condition. The bimbo, being a stupid and jealous sort, asks Hibino about it, and he tells her very sternly not to tell anyone. Oh great, the news will be all over town before you know it.

Hibino accompanies Masaki home, where he picks up a copy of the Kaoru Fan Club newsletter that fell out of her mailbox. He then promises to buy her the CD for her birthday the following week, which she had completely forgot. Yeah, when you’re staring death in the face, the day you started life can seem pretty insignificant.

Masaki walks up the steps to her house while looking at the newsletter, and it suddenly hits her: On the front page is a group photo of some trip somewhere, and loser-type is front row left! She frantically calls Hibino back, perhaps to call a hit on loser-type or something.

Keigo is taking a walk in the park, while wearing his ugly sunglasses. There’s a dude in the park playing Keigo’s songs on the saxophone. When he’s done, he spots Keigo and comes over to say what a big fanboy he is. This is the 3rd guy in the show to have the medium-long hairstyle Keigo is sporting. I’m starting to get bored of it, mostly because it’s my hairstyle too!

The sax player sticks out his hand to shake Keigo’s, but Keigo not-so-subtly ignores it. He looks at it, exhales smoke and walks away. It is beneath him to befriend mere struggling musicians!

Hibino and Masaki go on an adventure to the record company to find out the name of loser-type. Um, these fanclubs aren’t big on their clients’ privacy, huh? They track him down to his last known address, but he’s moved and left no forwarding address. He quit his job too, so he’s totally gone now! “Do you think he left this world?” Masaki asks, suddenly. Haha, good observation!

She goes to wait at Keigo’s house until the white van drops him off. She’s pestering him to get tested, and scares him by telling him that loser-type is probably already wasting away from the disease. She doesn’t want him to die, but he gets all existential and retorts that when the time comes, he’ll die anyway. Then he literally and metaphorically pushes her away, because it’s none of her concern whether he lives or dies.

She yells back that she has discovered the beauty of life, and now she wants to live! Then she digs a little deeper and identifies his defensive reaction as one of fear. He wordlessly walks away to sulk in a corner, so she must have hit the nail on the head.

In a noisy club filled with silly girls, a bitchy silly girl with a secret spills it to 3 other sillies that Masaki has an illness, which they would do well to avoid. We’ll come back to this in a bit, because now we see that Masaki’s mother has told her husband that Masaki isn’t eating. Of course she’s not, she’s in love! She survives on fresh air and sunshine! Otosan blames Masaki’s non-eating on the fact that she has a bad relationship with her mother, since Okaasan is always busy. Dude: pot, kettle, black, you.

Okaasan actually puts her money where her mouth is, and goes in to chat with Masaki. She asks what gift her kid wants, and Masaki is touched that her own mother would remember the day she came into this world. Duh. So based on this scene, I predict that Masaki will soon confide in her mother, her only remaining ally in this world!

Keigo is standing on a building rooftop, but he’s too chicken to commit suicide. Just as well, the president of the record company wants to talk to him. Boring scene la.

Masaki retrieves her books from her locker, and they’ve all been defaced in black marker. Okay, can someone tell me what is the point of this? I know it’s meant to show how she’s been ostracised, but girls generally do social isolation and gossiping, not this juvenile graffiti-ing. She goes to the restroom, where one of her erstwhile friends is in need of a hanky. When Masaki offers her one, the girl asks for a tissue from someone else instead. Then they leave hurriedly, and Masaki enters a cubicle to see more graffiti implicating her with a disease. Oh boo hoo hoo!

We are then treated to a slideshow of Masaki’s childhood pictures, some of which are really charming.

After school, Masaki corners the most sympathetic (and left-out) girl of her former clique. Of all the betrayals, only this girl’s rejection mattered to Masaki. She goes to find Hibino at the “shop offering unimaginable goods” where he works. Stupid bimbo is there, and she takes the opportunity to drive a wedge between Masaki and HIbino by playing instigator.

Masaki goes home and reads a nice card written to her from her mother, so she goes in search of Okaasan at the shop. Okaasan has just had a visit from the traveling salesman, and Masaki stands outside watching her mother work, when the salesman leans in to kiss Okaasan! Oh no! She politely dodges and pushes him away, and Masaki decides this is a bad time. She walks away, but Okaasan catches a glimpse of her retreating reflection in a shop mirror across the street. Masaki stomps home in a rage, and her father notices that she’s making so much noise as to disturb his sports telecast. Masaki ignores her father’s query on what is wrong, but she makes a conflicted beeline for the safety of her room.

She is lying in a disturbed heap on her bed (no futons for these guys) when her phone rings. I’d make fun of her ringtone, but I didn’t even have a cellphone in 1998, so. She answers with a barely-audible “hai”, and gets the familiar “ore dayo”. He took the test! Several moments of suspense follow.

His result is… not out yet. *deflates* Oh well, not like I was expecting anything different. It took a few days for my blood test to come back too, and mine was only to find out my blood type. Apparently, Keigo “went to a hospital that will mail the results”. So, not the type of place to go to for emergency diagnoses, then.

“I’m scared,” he confesses. Then it’s her turn to shock him. “Keigo, I wish you would test positive.” For the humanly simple reason that she is all alone, so at least they’d have each other if they were both ill. She’s tired of fighting her battles alone. Our Keigo is at least perceptive enough to figure out that something happened to upset her. With a final gasp, she hangs up the phone and collapses onto her bed. Keigo, faced with the unrelenting beep-beep-beep of the line, has a few moments of camera time to himself, so he can work on his “looking sad and worried” face.

Despite the bleakness of the situation, morning comes again, as it invariably does. As Masaki leaves for school, her mother tells her to come back early, as it’s Masaki’s birthday. Again, Masaki takes several moments to digest this, then says only “bye”.

Keigo is nattily dressed in a coat when he goes out to retrieve his mail. And in his mail is… his long-awaited result from the hospital! Stupid show keeps us in suspense by cutting to a gym scene. Masaki is being ostracised during a game of volleyball. I must say, their PE uniform is ridiculously cute. Floral-patterned t-shirts and pink shorts.

She looks so forlorn after school that her erstwhile friend decides to go talk to her and tell her what the rest of the school is saying about her. She doesn’t believe the rumour that Masaki has AIDS, she thinks it’s just malicious gossip spread by those who couldn’t stand Masaki’s independent character. “What if it’s true that I have AIDS?” Asami (her friend) is shocked, and scatters her armful of magazines that I think she was carrying especially for this dramatic purpose.

Asami doesn’t move to pick up her magazines, so Masaki picks them up for her. When Asami doesn’t reach out to take them, Masaki leaves them on the bench, and promises to sever her friendship with Asami so that she won’t be affected by Masaki’s status.

We return to Keigo, who finally gathers up the courage to open the mailer from the hospital. He gulps, steels himself to open it, then collapses to his knees as the camera cuts to show us the contents. He’s negative. So he has a cigarette.

Masaki returns to the one friend she has left, but stupid bimbo is now acting helpless and calls Hibino into the shop before Masaki can approach. Meanwhile, her family are waiting for her at home with a cake. Wow, they even have champagne on ice. I am so doing this for my birthday next.

The birthday girl returns home in time to see, through the curtains, her happy family popping open the champagne, so she decides not to bring gloom upon her own party. She goes to Keigo’s apartment building, and waits outside sans umbrella or raincoat, in the pouring rain. A stray puppy joins her, until a set of headlights reveal a black roadster coming for her. Specifically, Keigo’s black roadster.

We get the first real mushy romantic moment of this episode, as they stare at each other through the windscreen and the rain. They go back to his apartment, and Keigo hides his test result inside a coffee-table book. While he pours out a whiskey (I hope it’s for him), Masaki reveals that she’s being picked on at school. Keigo puts his glass on the table (oi! Use a coaster!) and delivers some advice about humans who can only feel good by putting down others.

“I wasn’t planning to come to you,” she says.

“If I’ll do, then come to me.” Oh yes you definitely do very well indeed, despite the anger management and unhealed wounds from the past. He continues smiling (smiling! Him!) as he reassures her that she’s not troublesome. And in a retro return to 1998, he says: “If you want to see me, just call me. Let me give you my number.” I recall SMS was still pretty new then, but no caller ID? Really?

He writes it down for her. What, don’t you have namecards? While his back is turned, she notices his test results sticking out from the book. He turns back to her in time to see that she’s picked up his mailer and is now opening it, and for some reason he seems conflicted. Like, “Oh no she shouldn’t be seeing that” and not for privacy reasons either.

“You didn’t have to hide it out of consideration for me.” Yeah, I know why he did that. It’s the same reason I feel a bit embarrassed to share my good grades when I know the asker didn’t do all that well. She exclaims that she’s happy he’ll live a long and healthy life (not with those ciggies he won’t), and then breaks into tears because it’s a life she won’t ever have, anymore.

And now it is Keigo’s turn to hold the little broken birdie to his chest and stroke her head. She continues, between sobs, that it is now the end between them. Hey, stop discriminating against the HIV-negative! His facial expression now tells us that he’s sad to hear this, which implies that he has feelings for her. Not like you didn’t see that coming.

She pulls away from him. His hair is ridiculously tousled. Why can’t I get that kind of volume on my hair? Before it’s too late, he speaks up. It’s hard to keep a straight face while watching this, because his hair is seriously insanely funny. She leaves anyway, because he didn’t ask her to stay.

She walks home, fighting back tears. Someone bumps into her and her trinket flies onto the road. While she’s squatting there, reminiscing, she sees loser-type in the human traffic on the pavement! He’s wearing a surgical face mask! Ta-da!

Masaki is now filled with renewed vigour and stops moping for a while, so she can track down this fella and give him a piece of her mind, as payment for the virus he gave her. The theme song started a while back, so this signals the end of yet another episode.

This one was draggier, all “woe is me” on Masaki’s side, but at least they got Keigo’s HIV status cleared up. If nothing of note happens in an episode, then it’s really rubbish.

This is episode 2 of God Please Give Me More Time, in which our heroine Masaki goes in search of the bastard who infected her with HIV. It’s a pretty annoying episode because she keeps having flashbacks to her experience in the doctor’s office when she’s being told about her condition. Cop-out!

She is in a train, returning from the doctor’s, when the reality of her life being cut short hits her and she collapses in a sobbing heap in the train. I like how the dude nearest to her just turns, looks, and goes back to his paper. That’s a very accurate portrayal!

After we’re treated to the bonus opening MV, the scene cuts to Masaki, sitting alone in her home’s dining hall as the clock ticks away the seconds of her life. Then her friend calls her out to go clubbing, and she goes! What a surprise, I’d have thought she would just hide under the covers. At the club, Masaki comes across a poster for a charity concert against AIDS, featuring our dear Keigo.

Meanwhile, where is Keigo at this point? He is backstage at the recording session, thinking of the girl who reached out to his poor lonesome self. Masaki passes by the building just as Keigo is coming out. There’s a stampede of crazed fangirls for the door, and Masaki falls down. Do Japanese schoolgirls not have to do homework? Why are they so free to chase after idols all the time?

Back in the white van (yes that one), Keigo’s lackey-cum-driver tells him that the girl from the rainy night was out there, along with the others. So of course he has to go back and pick her up from where she’s sitting on a parapet, holding a hanky to her bleeding elbow. Oh, my knight on a white horse van! Although frankly, I prefer his black roadster. Mmm.

They go back to his bachelor pad, but this time she just stands outside. He turns to her and sees her injured elbow. When he reaches out to take a better look at it, she rejects him and we cut to a shot of the hanky lying on the floor. As if we didn’t know she was bleeding already. Then Masaki goes on and on about how she really loved him and wanted to get to know him, and that she doesn’t regret sleeping with him at all. (Something tells me she was referring to the emotional investment and not the physical side of things.) The silly female then decides to walk home, and the ever-suave Keigo sits on his couch looking at her bloodied hanky. No, this is the RIGHT thing to do! Don’t chase after women! It’s just part of their game!

Masaki rolls out of bed, refuses breakfast, and only her mother seems to care. Her father cares more about his golf game, and her mugger brother runs off for his first-period test. Masaki decides to skip school to visit Hibino (Ah Beng) to tell him to take an STD test. Hibino’s female colleague mentions that Masaki hangs out at a club frequented by girls who do “sex for money”, though what is this supposed to indicate, I have no idea. Would the club be like a go-go bar?

There follows a PSA (public service announcement) in the form of scary words like “painful”, “death”, “sexual transmission” and the like jumping out at Masaki as she flips through a book on AIDS. Thanks for further stigmatizing people living with HIV and AIDS!

Enough of Masaki’s emo-tizing, what’s Keigo up to? He’s reminiscing about his late girlfriend, who died from some disease in hospital! Oh, how he held her cold dead body and lamented her passing! Boo hoo hoo! Then he decides to give Masaki a ring. To tell her that he doesn’t care if she drops dead. Because she has no idea what is means to live or die. “You don’t know what it means to die! Or to love someone!” And who made YOU the expert, Keigo-san? After she hangs up, her terribly unperceptive friends show up to drag her to the club. Again.

What follows is just a lot of Masaki being emo and pushing away the people who care, such as Hibino and her mother. So we go back to Keigo, who is sitting in on a rehearsal. On his own accord. Kaoru (the singer) remarks that this is unusual of him, because he doesn’t usually care about others. “Have you suddenly started taking an interest in others?” Again, cue flashback to Masaki saying… something. It’s not important what is it anymore, is it?

We get to watch some neighbourhood soccer before Hibino shows up to tell Masaki that he tested negative on the STD test. “What about the HIV test?” He digs out another piece of paper. “Negative means I don’t have it, right?” So Masaki lashes out at him, because it wasn’t negative for her, and isn’t this what she deserves for engaging in compensated dating? Hibino, being the stalwart man (and also a bit of a doormat) comforts her by telling her (essentially) that he will still be her friend.

Okay, so now we know that it wasn’t Hibino who infected her. That leaves 2 candidates! Although the way this story is going, you should have known from the start who was the culprit.

Still in denial, Masaki calls up the hospital late at night to ask if there could have been a mistake. The doctor stalls by telling her to come to the hospital, and Masaki eventually gets it. There wasn’t any mistake (because that would be a really cheap copout).

While she lies in a miserable heap on the bed, her phone rings. It’s Keigo, surprise surprise. What is this, a booty call? You tell her off and then call her up like nothing happened? Although, I don’t think I’ve heard anything sexier to come out of a cellphone than Keigo’s “ore dayo” (it’s me). The unlimited arrogance! I like.

She’s still puzzling over this magic of someone’s voice coming out of her phone, when a *beep beep* sounds from outside her window. Okay, so it’s more like *honk honk*, but it’s still kinda a cute sound, not *pooon poooon* like the lorries do in Malaysia. Girl apparently has enough brains to put two and two together, and opens her window to look down into Keigo’s convertible, which so conveniently has its top down. And of course her bedroom window is conveniently above wherever he decided to stop his car, otherwise Masaki’s dad might have been the one throwing golf clubs at Keigo for making noise late at night.

In an expositional move, Masaki asks how he got her address. I mean, dude may be a superstar, but he’s not psychic nor does he have access to central government databases… I hope. Answer: She is a member of Kaoru’s fan club, so he got her address from there. Quite a good move, not terribly slick but it got the job done. It’s something I would have done, with my data-mining capabilities. He gives her back her biohazardous hanky, and follows this up with… a cigarette. Man! Totally gratuitous smoking.

The hanky reminds her that Keigo is doing some AIDS charity concert, so she asks if he ever got tested. Keigo replies that his agency made him get tested, as part of the campaign. A lorry rumbles by as he reveals that he tested… positive. OH NO!

He keeps a straight face for about 7.5 seconds before breaking into his first grin of the series. PSYCH! So he’s not going to die from AIDS. Because at the rate he’s puffing, lung cancer will get him first. “So it wasn’t you,” Masaki mumbles, to which Keigo gives the most adorable “huh?” I have ever seen in a grown man. [Updated: Keigo is KIDDING! He doesn't have HIV, so he's not the culprit. Anyway, this is a run-of-the-mill romance. Your hero cannot be the cause of the heroine's disease!]

They drive up to some hill overlooking the city, and Takeshi basically stops acting for this part. He is essentially telling his own life story as Keigo tells Masaki how he spent time in LA and feels neither here nor there, with no sense of belonging. “Alone and yet wanting help.” He turns back to Masaki. “Isn’t that how you feel?”

She gathers up her courage to reply. “Keigo, I…” and her grip tightens on the musical-note-patterned paper cups they’re drinking out of. Such a cute and kitschy design! You wouldn’t have thought that a serious musician like Keigo would use such things! The romantic music builds up as Keigo leans in for a kiss, then cuts off abruptly as Masaki pulls back and tells him not to be kind to her.

Having now distanced herself from him (and also because we’re coming to the end of the episode), Masaki finally does the big reveal. “I slept with a man for 50,000 yen!” Keigo: “Sou ka (I see).” Then she gets on with it. I have HIV! I’m gonna get AIDS! And I didn’t want to tell you, but I have to: I may have passed it to you!

HAVE YOU PEOPLE NEVER HEARD OF CONDOMS?! Seriously, even if there wasn’t any HIV, do the words “unwanted teenage pregnancy” mean anything? And you, Keigo, you’re supposed to be the adult! You should know better, because she could slap you with a child-support suit anytime, dude. Sheesh!

Keigo’s expression of shell-shocked horror is probably a PSA in itself. I wish it also meant that he was regretting his promiscuous past, but that’s probably too much to ask. Frankly, just vicariously absorbing his shock, fear and horror is enough to make me celibate. Too many evil germs out there.

What pisses me off is that it took her so long to get around to telling Keigo, when he was the one at most risk of getting infected by her. I mean, when he brought her to his apartment after she fell down, she had plenty of chances to tell him, but instead she just went beating round the bush about how she doesn’t hate him. Yeah, you don’t regret sleeping with him, but if you passed it to him, he’s going to have a lifetime of regrets for sleeping with you! And how come we’re never told how he feels about sleeping with her? Are we supposed to assume that it was just another one-night stand for him? But it’s obviously not, so how come Keigo isn’t allowed to contribute to this romantic fantasy? He just stands as a blank screen for females to project their own romantic fantasies. Takeshi’s great in this role, but I think the actress had more chance to show off her acting skills.

I recently changed my usual bus route to work, because I kept missing the bus to Toa Payoh. Now I take a bus to Orchard and then the MRT to Novena. Along the way, I face mortal danger from the escalators – and it’s Takeshi’s fault.

At the underpass from Tangs to the MRT station, there’s a giant ad for Red Cliff, and you can look at the different actors as you go up or down the escalator. Tony Leung and Takeshi get the prime spot at eye level, as well as another Takeshi picture right at the bottom of the escalator. So I have to mind that I’m not too busy staring, otherwise I’ll fall headlong down the very sharp and serrated steps. Also, I keep having to resist the temptation to pose in front of the Takeshi picture and take an “act cute” photo.

And I have to run this gauntlet every day!

On another note, I am now catching up with my neglected TV series, Kamisama Mou Sukoshi Dake (God Please Give Me More Time), which catapulted Takeshi to fame in Japan. Frankly, it’s a pretty rubbish story – it reads like fanfiction, which I suppose it is – how very meta. But I never claimed to watch it for the story, eh?

So I’m going to do a blow-by-blow commentary a la Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and snark my way through the series.

Part One begins after the jump.

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