And that’s when Sasami realized she forgot to put on a skirt.

Summary: Sasami realizes she does not have any friends at school, so she tries to befriend Kagami. The latter is, however, less than enthusiastic about being Sasami’s friend.

I am going to coin a new term: Sasamism. It will be defined as “a narrative style based around shoehorning random supernatural plot devices into slice-of-life stories in order to explain things the audience did not even know exist”. It is all over this show, and while I can see it being a deliberate stylistic choice, to make the audience feel the same confusion Sasami feels while the Yagami sisters take care of everything behind the scenes, that does not mean I have to accept it. Sasami@Unmotivated managed to halfheartedly save itself last week, but now it becomes all to clear that this show has no clue about anything, most important of which how to keep itself going. Yet the most frustrating thing of all is that Sasami@Unmotivated even manages to fail at being completely irredeemably bad. In fact, this episode even had a pretty great underlying narrative. A former shut-in with no knowledge about friendship stubbornly tries to befriend an emotionless robot? It could be something Makoto Shinkai came up with.

Then again, this is Sasami@Unmotivated, so of course this plot cannot be properly implemented without an unhealthy dose of the aforementioned Sasamism. As if it was conditioned to tear holes in its own plot for no good reason and naively fool itself into thinking the best way to make viewers familiar with its characters is by explaining what their personalities are like, watching this show is analogous to seeing someone repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot with the same gun and trying not to laugh. If they want to fullfil Sasami’s wish for a friend, why exactly would the myriad gods get jealous at Kagami and try to kill her? Would killing the one person who can grant her wish not be counterproductive? By the way, are they really planning on killing a killer robot by dropping a bowl of noodles on her head? The myriad Gods are morons.

“I’m here to kick ass and take lots of naps. And I’m all out of naps.”

Wait! I’m not done yet! Was there ever any remote hint throughout the episode that Sasami was in danger? Why did Kagami have to keep that a secret, instead of just coming clean and preventing a whole heap of misunderstandings?  While this episode even managed to churn in a bit of drama, I find it hard to even remotely relate to Sasami, who is clingy, selfish, treats her brother like dirt and thinks friendship equates to annoying the heck out of your target of affections, SpongeBob SquarePants style. Twenty-two minuts and poisonous amounts of lesbian subtexts later, Sasami can officially call Kagami her friend, but I am not entirely sure if she deserves it.

Nevertheless, the second half of this episode contained more than enough good ideas to be enjoyable. I am not cold enough to admit that Sasami’s crying didn’t make me feel bad for her — although that might have just been Kana Asumi’s voice — and the scene with Tama at the playground re-established the younger Yagami sister as the simple-minded, innocent and happy-go-lucky sweetheart who cheers up every scene she’s in. The same cannot be said for Kamiomi and Tsurugi, however, whose sole purpose in the most recent episodes seemed to consist of being disturbingly perverted. Let’s hope there is no such thing as sacrilege in Shintoism. What was the point of that eating contest scene, by the way? Those two minutes you wasted on that could have easily provided the character development this episode needed to be actually good. Sadly enough, Sasami@Unmotivated still prioritizes its self-indulgent nuttiness and mind-numbingly imbecilic incest jokes over  its attempts to be genuinely entertaining. I will just keep sitting here and watching, because watching people hurt themselves is funny.

Random observations Plot holes

• Apparently Kagami can easily detect and purify evil Gods. Then why didn’t she purify Sasami from the moment they met? Could it be because the author only came up with that ridiculous evil God plot point last minute? No way!
• If the Yagami sisters have sworn to protect Sasami, why are Tama and Tsurugi goofing around instead of, you know, helping their sister beat the evil Gods threatening Sasami’s safety?
• Why is Kagami talking about being a robot in the middle of the classroom where everyone can hear her?
• Most importantly… Why is the show called Sasami@Unmotivated when Sasami stopped being unmotivated 2 episodes ago?