Freeter, Ie wo Kau – Episode 2 : Nino continues to be a douche for the first 40 minutes

Now that he has a job, Seiji tries to step up to the plate to take care of his mother while her condition slowly worsens. He distances himself from his coworkers and his father continues to blame his mother’s condition on him. After nearly loosing his job, Seiji realizes how serious his situation is and how important it is to stay at his job, all the while his family have secrets within their own hearts that make Seiji’s life problems look like selfish complaining.

He spends more time crying about how life isn't fair then being an adult

In episode two, Seiji (Ninomiya) continues at his job with no passion. He comes to work, barely works, and leaves without even trying to bond with his coworkers. When asked to go out drinking after work, he quickly declines their offer and hurry home to discover his mother’s (Asano) condition not getting any better and that his father seems to avoid her at whatever cost. Frustrated with his father (Takenaka), he confronts him about his mother  but his father refuses to help, blaming her illness on him.

” The reason she’s like this is because of you. Her illness is your fault. “

Stuck with his father’s anger towards him for his lack of regard in life and wife’s illness, he continues to work and come home until one morning he notices his mother repacking the plastic bottles for recycling because ” they bring the garbage ” back for leaving a glass bottle inside, further escalating her paranoia and anxiety. He takes time in the morning to help her only to arrive at work late. His boss notices him and scolds him in front of the entire work crew. Inside the work trailer, his boss promptly fires him due to his negligence but Manamai (Karina), his supervisor, comes up to his defense and saves his job. Unfortunately, Seiji is offended and quits anyway.

His father likes to preach to his son but he doesn't even practice was he preaches

A few days later, at night, he watches his mother iron clothes in a daze to find out she’s ironing his uniform after telling her he’s going to take a bath. She says a few nice words about him looking good in his uniform and doing well at work and its enough to get him to return to work and make a come around to work harder. Even still, he is apprehensive to those around him but still manages to get closer to his supervisor. The job gets done and he is paid a healthy amount of 250,000 yen for his work. Satisfied, he ends up staying at the construction job, much to Manamai’s pleasure.

Though, unknown to Seiji, his father is neglecting his mother for an affair he holds afterwork and his older sister (Igawa) is, subliminally, being harassed at the PTA in which she volunteers at and pressured at the clinic that her husband is a director to serve as a better wife and representative.

If he keeps this up, that govt. agent is gonna be his new best friend

So, episode pretty much sealed the deal. I like Freeter — the characters are engaging enough to keep me watching and the added twists in Seiji’s family gave the story more depth than the first episode provided. On Tumblr, I was practically ranting about how much Nino’s character annoyed the hell out of me. He really plays a pathetic person, someone whom you don’t feel sorry for at all but you just rather punch in the face for being a selfish crybaby. So yeah, I’m looking at you Nino fans who find his character cute or sad because honestly, there is nothing LIKEABLE about this guy at all.

Any guy that worries about himself moreso than his mom needs to get punched in the dick.

And Daddy Dearest needs to get punched in the dick. While I was rooting for him in episode 1, episode 2 puts him in a different light. It makes him a hypocrite of his own words. How can you bring your own son down when you’re running around town with another woman at night and spending ridiculous amounts of money on her? Especially knowing that your wife is severely ill at home and is dependent on you now to make sure she doesn’t relapse or hurt herself? Your wife is on the floor mumbling to herself, apologizing, repeating herself and you just walk away? That’s not being a husband, that’s just being a dick.

The bitch-ass nextdoor neighbor is constantly bullying Seiji's mother, adding to her stress induced illness 🙁

So the son is a douchebag and the father is a dick. At least the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.

I am really interested in how Seiji interacts with his new coworkers. While he’s apprehensive to them, they seem to either accept him or push him away. I hope they help him realize that there’s more to the world than just himself. There’s other people, their emotions, and their struggles to consider. I also wonder what exactly are they doing with Maru’s character, in the next episode preview, it seems they’re slowly going to give his character more development so he’s isn’t so much the mood maker. It looks like his character and the secretary might develop a relationship, considering he seems to be smitten with her.

Anyway, I’m actually anticipating next weeks episode. Hopefully it’ll get better and continue with the engaging character and maybe Seiji won’t revert to douchebag status cause right now he upgraded to whinny brat.

Click Here For Screencaps from this Episode

I foresee a potentially good series... Hopefully it stays that way.