Natsuo, If You’re Going To Lie, Cover Your Tracks

Domestic Girlfriend Episode 10 Review

Getting caught in a lie seems to be a theme this episode. First we have the literature club adviser away ‘sick’ for multiple days prompting his oh-so-concerned-students to go visit him at his home. Turns out he’s not sick. He’s actually an author, one that Natsuo is a fan of, and he’s just behind on his deadlines. He openly tells his students this while puffing on a cigarette and blatantly says he hasn’t told the school that he’s working on the side.

Um…

Are any of the teachers at this school actually going to have any kind of moral or ethical standard?

However, that isn’t really a drama. It is more just foreshadowing lies coming apart which Natsuo, being a wannabe writer, should have paid more attention to given he’s been lying to Rui about where he’s been going for dinner and it is going to bite him.

The next day at school he’s teasing the girl who like the literature teacher a little bit and she elbows him in the ribs, at the top of a staircase, sending him flying in a way that defies any kind of physics unless Natsuo actually launched himself backwards at the same time as she elbowed him, but let’s ignore that part of the story for now. After falling down the stairs he breaks his leg and so begins Rui in care-taker mode.

Do we even need to discuss how breaking a leg doesn’t prevent his hands or brain from working so why he really doesn’t need his step-sister to share a bath with him? This story has gone for a lot of contrivances in order to create drama and fairly uncomfortable situations like the one we get where Rui is reaching for the soap in the dark bathroom (yeah, you can see where they go with that already). While usually these aren’t too intrusive, the way they blow a broken leg out of proportion here is insane.

Yet, despite how many things he apparently can’t do on his own in this scene because of a broken leg, later on his father apparently has no issue with his son going out in the rain and one crutch to find a missing step-sister.

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Anyway, Rui ends up at the cafe and finds out that Natsuo hasn’t been going to his friend’s place and so calls Natsuo on it, and he lies again. Not only that, at the next opportunity he lies to Rui again saying he’s going to apologise to his friend and off he goes to Hina’s house, where Rui later finds him having confirmed he isn’t at his friends house.

So, drama.

Despite how idiotic the plot is here and how overblown everything is, I can’t say I actually dislike it. Outside of the bathroom scene, I actually quite enjoyed watching the train wreck that is Natsuo’s life right at the moment. Still, wondering how exactly this one will wrap up.

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Karandi James

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• Series Review – Domestic Girlfriend
• Episode 1 – And He Thought This Was a One Night Stand
• Episode 2 – The Growing Bonds That Join These Characters
• Episode 3 – Why Not Prepare Popcorn For This Fantastic Drama?
• Episode 4 – Good Intentions; Questionable Activities: How Will This End?
• Episode 5 – The Rumour Mill Surrounding The Easy Girl
• Episode 6 – When In Doubt, Just Pile on More Characters and Stir
• Episode 7 – Domestic Dramas and More Mundane High School Problems
• Episode 8 and 9 – Making Choices and Hearing Truths
• Episode 10 – Natsuo, If You’re Going To Lie, Cover Your Tracks
• Episode 11 – Foolish Hearts and Foolish Choices
• Episode 12 – Fuelling Fiction Through Pain
• Images from: Domestic Girlfriend. Dir. S Ibata. Diomedea. 2019.