A PUBLIC SERVANT’S JOB IS TO BE YELLED AT?!

So we meet again! (I guess..? I hope..?) I actually wanted to get my hands on writing this earlier but I watched Psycho-Pass’ movie, not that it was exciting as the first two seasons but still managed to throw me into the sea of feels. These two seasons were too good that when I was watching the movie, I realised I missed every little detail about Psycho-Pass; even the Sibyl System… Okay maybe we can exclude Detective Shimotsuki, because even the lamest villian is more appealing than her. Considering that I haven’t finished translating my analysis on Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, I wanted to talk about something more light-hearted. This is Servant x Service time! It has been a while since I watched this show but felt like watching again.

Servant x Service is a 4-coma manga started serialising in 2009 by Takatsu Karino, though the mangaka’s more popular work is Working!!. Anime has a total of 13 episodes and the genres are comedy, seinen, slice-of-life.

Servant x Service tells the story of three new-comers who just began working in Public Health and Wellfare section in a governmental office; Hasebe Yutaka, Miyoshi Saya and … Yamagami. Each have their own issues; Miyoshi is a 24-yeard old woman who had to postpone her education because of money issues, Hasebe is the good-looking, capable-of-everything guy and as a first impression he seems as a hyperactive, care-free womanizer and a professional slacker (what kind of combination is that?). He works as a public servant because everyone in the family is also in the same work line. As for Yamagami, she has issues with her name. Her parents cannot decide on one, then decide to give her every name they have come up with and the public servant back then approves of this. Since she encountered problems concerning her name, she became a public servant to find out (and seek revenge) the servant back then who approved her parents’ illogical request. The revealed part of her first name goes as Lucy Kimiko Akie Airi Shiori Rinne Yoshiho Ayano Tomika Chitose Sanae Mikiko Ichika… Result is :

Apart from these three, there is Ichimiya Taishi, their superviser and Chihaya Megumi, a temporary worker. Chihaya is a cosplay otaku, who loves to sew clothes for cosplay and goes to comic conventions for cosplaying. They are not openly together with Ichimiya but it is somewhat revealed around the middle of the season. They keep it under cover because Ichimiya’s little sister Touka has a brother complex, though, Chihaya and Touka frequently hangs out since Chihaya makes her clothes. One more character left to be mentioned in the office and that’s our section chief Kenzo Momoi : He is a talking and moving, high-tech, pink, stuffed rabbit. Well, yeah he is actually a human but because he’s so shy he stays at home and controls the rabbit. Or so I think, because how the rabbit works like that is not revealed.

Likeability of the characters are generally high. For some characters, I have my reservations because I personally find that kind of caracter rather annoying. First annoyance for me is Touka, the brocon sister. If the tsundere tone is light, I am fine with them but Touka is too much in my opinion. The reason she stands out is because she’s not just a side character that you can somewhat ignore, she is one of the main characters and after a short while you meet her, there is nothing of her apart from her tsundere obsession towards his brother, rather than a main one she seems like a one-sided character. The other annoyance is Yamagami-san, I really didn’t like her character. Maybe I cannot relate to her problem (bullying because of her name) but I would rather see her either deal with it as she always says (finding that public servant and take revenge) or at least realize that she uses this problem as an excuse to her indecisiveness or forget about it alltogether; make at least a little progress or do not progress but realize what kind of situation you are in. When someone states something as ‘problem’, always whines and cannot take action because of that problem, on the other hand never does anything to make the situation better or doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that they use the problem as an excuse, I wan to shout out to their face “Well then, fudge you!” and march away as far as possible because there is no winning or helping with them. If I were to imagine a character like this, they wouldn’t be as naive as Yamagami, maybe much more troubled. Thus in the end, Yamagami’s interaction with others and reactions she give to Hasebe’s feelings doesn’t seem real. I think this is also the reason why Hasebe’s feelings do not reach her and in the end Yamagami leaves an open door for Hasebe but still half-heartedly and with stupid reasoning.

I wouldn’t want to be misunderstood; I certainly do not demand a happy ending, that is not the reason why I am dissatisfied. Of course Yamagami has the option to turn Hasebe down, I just think Yamagami’s reasoning and character was not pulled off greatly because of the issues I mentioned above. I enjoyed watching Hasebe very much, we get to discover how he is at work, at home and with his loved one; many different aspects. He is funny and blunt about his ‘actual profession’, a.k.a slacking. People cannot stay mad at him for long because e can actually manage to do a variety of things like sign language, ventriloquism, helping everyone when they are desperate or actually managing to do his job. I also enjoyed watching Chihaya-Ichimiya Taishi relationship, with all the stupidity and misunderstandings, their awkward struggle was so cute.

Since the show is more focused on the relationship between these characters rather than the inner workings of the office, apart from a couple of hints and remarks we do not get much about it. Maybe I didn’t really get them because the problems, complaining etc. was totally the same as in my country, it didn’t really leave much presence, only made me comment “Waa, that’s so like here!”. Though the remarks made in anime as being a public servant is a steady job to earn money, at the same time the work is so steady, people sometimes loose their sense of work, society’s impression of them that they are paid from the taxes society pay, yet they do not work properly is all reflected correctly and I think these issues are not unique to neither Japan, nor Turkey.

To sum it up, I think Servant x Service is a really enjoyable serie and you do not feel any discontinuity in the story, since it is adapted from a 4-coma manga, storyline was done nicely. It is definitely a serie that you can re-watch and makes you laugh out loud occasionally.

Hope to see you in another blogpost, tanks for stopping by and feel free to comment if anything comes to mind!

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