Split Screen: Dermatology for All

Now that everyone has discovered the joys of watching TV with their friends remotely, Split Screen looks positively ahead of the times! Thanks for tuning in folks! If you’re looking for some good self-isolation watches, you can’t find better than Coffee Prince and My Hero Academia! We’re hoping to do these more frequently now that neither of us is leaving the house for the foreseeable future, so get caffeinated and pumped! This time, we pick up with the Coffee Prince at its grand opening, and with the UA kids back in class. Remember coffee shops and in-person school? Good times.

(New to Split Screen? You can catch up on the whole blog here!)

Coffee Prince: Fourth Cup (from minute 29)

M: At least Coffee Prince had a successful grand opening. 

E: Yeah. When all the stuff was free, the customers really rolled in. Shocking.

M: Sometimes it’s hard to get people to come to stuff even when it’s free, so it’s not nothing. 

E: That’s true. I probably would have planned to go and then not wanted to leave my apartment.

M: Eun-chan’s mom didn’t reveal her secret yet!

E: “Son! Your mom came!”

M: She probably practiced that for hours. 

E: You know what, she didn’t mess it up, and that’s all you can ask for.

M: There are so many love triangles on this show, I can’t keep them straight. 

E: It’s hard when some of them involve the same people too.

M: We have the central quadrangle of Eun-chan, Yoo-joo, Han-gyul, and Han-sung, and then we have Eun-chan’s sister whose name I still haven’t learned, Min-yup, and Japanese waffle cook, and then Eun-chan’s mom, whose name we learned this time but I don’t remember, Mr. Hong, and their weird neighbor guy. 

E: Look, it’s been a few weeks since we watched this in reality. All the names are gone.

M: I think I’m doing pretty well, all things considered. 

E: Yes, yes, you’re doing good.

M: I’m excited for the surplus of romantic drama. I wasn’t expecting Eun-chan’s mom and Mr. Hong to be a thing. I forgot to include the coffee grandma in that grouping! She and Mr. Hong clearly have history. 

E: Again, I feel like it was not romantic history though.

M: He seemed really bitter this time about her marrying a rich man. 

E: Oh, was he talking about the grandmother there? I thought he was referring to Han-gyul’s mom, actually But I think that’s where my video cut out for a minute.

M: I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think so. 

E: Anyway, Eun-chan’s mom can do better than both those guys. Mr. Weird Neighbor is extremely weird, and Mr. Hong picks his nose and eats his boogers.

M: And takes a nap in the middle of the day while his employees go dig holes in the front yard! 

E: I don’t know why Min-yup’s first two ideas for a competition were “dig a big hole” and “drink a bucket of water.”

M: Min-yup got so naked and dirty so fast. It was so much. 

E: And then they played basketball. Because that’s what you do when you’re on the clock. Play basketball. That’s what I do. Obviously.

M: Good clean manly fun. 

E: Don’t think about how Eun-chan played basketball for an hour with ace bandages wrapped around her chest.

M: That had not crossed my mind at all! That’s why she was so bad!

E: Anyway, this was mostly a montage half-episode of all the Coffee Prince boys going out and having some not-so-clean manly fun.

M: They’re a fun group to hang out with. It was always fun to enter F4’s man cave, and this gives me hope for the Coffee Prince group dynamic being pretty light and entertaining. 

E: Yeah, this was more fun to watch than the drinking last time, I think.

M: I don’t know why playing basketball for an hour was enough to forgive the coffee boys for slacking off. Did the exercise endorphins help Han-gyul get over it?

E: I mean, the day of the opening was a week from Han-gyul’s birthday and the day of the basketball playing was Han-gyul’s birthday…so it seems like it had been a week with basically no customers. It’s impressive they lasted that long without going off the rails.

M: Fair enough. Seems like they should be more worried. Didn’t Waffle Guy have a cult following? Where are they?

E: They abandoned him for selling out obviously.

M: He went mainstream. 

E: This is just what he deserves. Asking in a foreign language to himself, “what am I doing here?”

M: Maybe if they start selling bubble tea, business will pick up. 

E: Han-gyul did want more iced drinks. But Mr. Hong is not reviewing the menu.

M: Well, would you review the menu if your boss was dissing you all the time?

E: I’d just work on my roasting skills.

M: I know he was talking about coffee, but I loved it. Remember when a fly landed on like, his eye? That just came back to me. 

E: Mr. Hong is a lot. Eun-chan’s mom really needs better suitors.

M: Is he more or less than sitting in a modified tripod position for an hour is?

E: I couldn’t do that position for a minute, so hats off to poor Waffle Boy and Ha-rim.

M: Literally. They could not wear hats in that position. 

E: Actually, wearing a hat might make it easier. The real issue of that pose was that they were driving their foreheads into blacktop.

M: Something I appreciate about Coffee Prince is that it has the outside conflict of making the coffee shop successful. Boys Over Flowers was always a delight, but sometimes could have used more of that outside urgency that wasn’t based in “Jun-pyo is getting married now.”

E: Yeah, I always wanted a bit more specificity in what he exactly did at Shinhwa. 

M: Business. 

E: I mean, sure. I guess I couldn’t really tell you what businessmen in the real world do either.

M: How do you feel about Eun-chan being a genetic two-timer?

E: That was a fun conversation. Nobody will replace Kang-san, but I appreciate the sibling dynamic that she and her sister have.

M: Maybe she’ll match Kang-san one day. I doubt it, but we’ll see. 

E: Nobody can measure up to Kang-san.

M: Han-sung is sure having fun with this, huh?

E: I just think he was trying to confirm that Han-gyul really didn’t know. Because he did not seem to believe Eun-chan when she said that he didn’t. And yet,  Han-gyul really does not know.

M: He real dumb. 

E: So, I give him permission to laugh knowingly. Just the once.

M: Finally, this was the episode of window dance routines. 

E: And singing.

M: Han-gyul is not allowed to dance like that again. It was too wiggly. 

E: He’s never gotten to practice dancing because he has such a low alcohol tolerance. He goes to the club, has one drink, and has to be shuttled home immediately. We’ve already learned this.

M: What an odd character. They’ve picked such strange traits for him. 

E: Distinctive though. Along with his abysmal polo collection.

M: Oh, it was so bad. 

E: Throw it in the trash with the Arthur shirt.

M: They keep getting worse and worse. I forgot about Eun-chan hiding in the lockers too.

E: She managed to play it off pretty well at the last minute.

M: While somehow eating all of Min-yup’s snacks?

E: I think she had done that previously. Because when Ha-rim came to wake her up before the competitions and the basketball, she was eating, like, cheese puffs, I think.

M: So, we’re adding a new feature to each of our shows in this trying time. 

E: A morbid feature.

M: You’ve gotta laugh. Otherwise, you’re just inside for a month. Not laughing. 

E: Let’s just say, there was sure a lot of face touching and face blowing and nose picking this episode. 

M: The Coffee Prince staff is not practicing recommended hygiene, I’ll tell you that much. 

E: Please take this episode as an example of how not to act in this crisis.

M: Wash your hands.

E: Exactly.

M: Romance tracker?

E: Well Eun-chan’s got a little crush on both the main dudes, and Han-gyul is very clearly still hung-up on Yoo-joo for whatever reason. So… looks messy!

M: Yeah, there’s going to be some explosive stuff. Not due to drinking coffee. 

E: Nooooooo….

M: WASH YOUR HANDS.

E: And drink milk too, apparently. That’s what this episode taught me.

M: I’ve lost track of our coffee count. Too many people at the opening. 

E: They were very caffeinated this episode though.

M: Buzz buzz. 

My Hero Academia S3E24: “A Season for Encounters”

M: I want to share something.

M: Hm.

E: Well, it tried.

M: Apparently you aren’t allowed to wash your hands in Japanese. 

E: This is just how Madelyn sounds singing along

M: doot doot dootdoot doo da doo dootdoot doo doo dooda doo I know what I have to do now!

E: We started this episode off with a check in on the villains. 

M: I was concerned for about two minutes that they were introducing a new villain. 

E: Well, they sort of did at the end, right? Mr. Plague mask? He’s ready for coronavirus.

M: I’ll say the same thing to Plague Doctor and Twice: NO MASKS! SAVE THE MASKS! JESUS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

E: They’re black market masks, it’s fine. 

M: Even worse! 

E: Anyway, we get Twice telling us a little bit about the shifts happening in society now that All Might has gone perma-skeleton. And, shocking nobody, Endeavor is not the same comforting nor crime-dissuading force that All Might once was.

M: Twice could benefit from some therapy. 

E: Yeah. The League of Villains is really just here pushing for Medicare for All, okay? Some structural changes to society so they can survive there. Their ways may be violent, but their cause is understandable.

M: Yes, since Dabi is on the team, they can plausibly be called the Burn-y Bros. 

E: Honestly though, most of them could probably use a few visits to the doctor…whether for counseling or their skin conditions.

M: I meant that if Twice got into therapy, he might abandon his villainous ways. Some of the others are too far gone. Can’t speak to what a good dermatologist could do, of course. 

E: I mean, if my flesh was held together by literal staples, I wouldn’t have much patience for people calling me gross either.

M: We’ve got to call people in, Emma, not call them out. 

E: But I do think that’s the general thought that the Twice-focused half of the episode wanted to get across. If you had to pick a line to sum it up, it’d be “heroes only save good citizens.” Twice has a belief that, once you do something bad, there’s no going back. He just wants a place to belong, because he doesn’t believe the world would accept him, and the League gives him that: socialization and understanding. Clearly something is not working for everyone in society here.

M: Correct. There’s a whole big metaphor here to be made, I’m sure, but I’ll just leave it at correct. 

E: Honestly, there just needs to be better systems set up to help people figure out what they can do with their Quirks. Like, don’t know what to do with your Quirk? Aimless? Well, might work for robbing a convenience store, so let’s do that. It sometimes seems like it’s either you’re a hero or nothing in this world. And I imagine it’s more tempting to turn to crime when the means for it are embedded into your genes.

M: That’s hard to judge. We’re watching a show about a hero academy. There must be other specialized high schools. 

E: Sure, that’s true. But still, like…even going back to the Shinso thing (who turned up again this episode), no teacher seems to have ever told him, “no, actually, your Quirk can be used for good things.” He was just surrounded by peers telling him “man, you’d make a scary villain.” So it’s honestly more surprising than not that he turned mostly okay.

M: Turned out okay is putting it mildly. BEEFY!

E: He turned into a beefy bulky okay boy.

M: I wouldn’t have noticed if the kids hadn’t said something. 

E: Listen, you appreciate and respect when your bros get beefy. 

M: He dummy thicc. 

E: No.

M: My eyes don’t lie. 

E: In the other half of the episode, Madelyn got a prediction correct. Nezu did indeed give a terrible speech. He tried to turn it around to something meaningful in the end, but he’d already lost them.

M: Nezu sounds like me in the last ten minutes of the last tutoring session before a kid takes the SAT. Like, get some sleep, that’s the most important thing you can do. Also I’m a weird rat creature. 

E: I would go for the Hound Dog approach myself. 

M: Who is Hound Dog?

E: He’s the school counselor, of course.

M: A therapy dog. I get it. 

E: It’s better than nothing, I guess. But also, is it better than nothing?

M: They can pet him for stress relief, I guess?

E: Seems a bit like a college calling in therapy dogs for all their extremely stressed students instead of doing anything to actually solve the sources of stress. But dogs are good.

M: Unless you consider Nezu a dog, and not an anime Mickey Mouse. cc: Clickbait Boyfriend

E: We also met a mysterious boy, who Madelyn has never seen before.

M: What would this have been like if I was not already so saturated with images of this boy?

E: “Wow, it’s Tintin.”

M: Yeah, maybe, to be honest. 

E: For anyone who doesn’t know the famous French comicbook character Tintin. Here you go.

E: Uncanny, right!?

M: Oh no. 

E: No, most of the Twitter response I remember to this character turning up really was “It’s Tintin!” or “It’s Lucas!” or “It’s Vault Boy!”

M: He’s got a familiar face, apparently. Just one of those faces. 

E: Faces without eye whites. Oh, or “He’s Mini All Might!” 

M: That’s the obvious one. How pissed was Nezu when All-Might picked a rando?

E: As pissed as Mickey Mouse when Goofy died.

M: in a Goofy voice: Don’t give uppppppp!

E: But after scaring a few years off the suspended Midoriya, we are introduced to him as a member of the Big Three. 

M: Literally couldn’t believe it when Aizawa said that. AIZAWA of all people. 

E: For a bit of context, it’s a small joke due to the the fact that MHA runs in Shonen Jump, and the previously generation of Shonen Jump had a Big Three of titles: Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. There’s not really an equivalent anymore, though One Piece is still running.

M: Are each of these people supposed to represent one of those mangas?

E: I think you could stretch it maybe, but no, I think it’s just “oh, I’ve got these three characters, they’re the best in the school, what could I call them? Oh, I got it!” sort of joke.

M: I just don’t think Aizawa would say that! Imagine your teacher introducing some upperclassmen like: “These are the Teen Titans.”

E: That’d be cool!

M: No, it would not. 

E: I wanna be a Teen Titan. 

M: Anyway, I think it’s the wrong policy that Deku and Bakugo are not even allowed to hear about their assignments. Really quasi-illegal. 

E: I think just for the days they’re suspended. Then they can catch up on all the work they have. Not saying that’s a good idea, but that is sort of how suspension works.

M: I hope no one told Deku’s mom about that.

E: Poor Deku’s Mom.

M: She never asked for this. 

E: Anything else stand out to you this episode? 

M: Tintin’s face power is weird. Can he walk through walls? Teleport? 

E: Something!

M: Surprises me that he’s a Big Three with that kind of power, it seems more geared for support.

E: Maybe! He had a lot of scars on his arms too.

M: Damn, maybe All-Might took his power back. Like ate a hair off this guy’s head while he slept. 

E: How very Luke Skywalker of him.

M: Yeah, totally. 

E: This is the episode where Madelyn just agrees with me.

M: It’s a nice change of pace. Should we talk about Todoroki’s ice blast for a while?

E: I live in dread of episodes where Todoroki does anything, and it’s all because of you.

M: I think the whole work study idea for the first years is a BAD idea. A Big Three Bad Idea. 

E: Everything they’re doing to the first-years is a bad idea, so it’s just on brand. It’s the UA brand. Kids in danger.

M: Why would they want to send more youngsters out into the field when even the hero licensing people made it clear they did not want extra heroes?

E: Well, they also need more good heroes fast. When you’ve got two diametrically opposing but important goals, it’s hard to find that balance.

M: Offer some of the villains a ton of money to switch. That would work. Twice would be great.

E: Twice cannot be bought. Twice stands for his beliefs. Vote Medicare for All.

M: What am I supposed to say to that?

E: But seriously though. We’re living in a pandemic. Please support M4A.

M: The UA kids would be in trouble. The cleaning crew is doing a subpar job. 

E: Don’t touch your classmates’ faces or their tails.

M: Just a good idea in general. 

E: The poor exchange student is stuck here now.

M: Since when is there a country outside of Japan on this show?

E: All Might got his attack names from somewhere. I dunno where, but somewhere.

M: That kind of undercuts this idea of Endeavor being the de facto next hero idol. Surely there’s an American hero or a British hero or a Senegalese hero–

E: Sure, but they’re not in Japan or able to go there. I tend to think of any talk about hero society being more specifically Japanese hero society. All Might is Japan’s number one hero. Idk about the rest of the world.

M: Very excited for the kids to study abroad in their third year. 

E: Would be fun. Are you ready for the next episode title? 

M: I think UA probably has the lawsuit title for withholding education, but now yes. 

E: The finale of season 3 is called “Unrivaled”

M: Neat neat neat. Prediction one: at some point in the next episode, Aizawa says, of the Big Three: “their power is unrivaled!”

E:

M: Prediction two: All-for-One dies in prison, thus relieving All-Might of his rival. 

E:

M: Prediction three: the League of Villains gets together to plan a prison break for All-for-One. Too bad! He’s already dead! But they’ve got some new allies, none of whom will be as popular as scary school girl. 

E: .  .

M: That was impressive. A full storyboard. 

E: Thank you very much.

M: Prediction four: TinTin is probably All-Might’s son, right? He’s connected somehow. 

E:

M: NO.

E: He knew it all along, he just had the wrong son!

M: Prediction five: Bakugo gets a work study with Endeavor even though he doesn’t have a license. They breed dogs. No, they rescue dogs, I’m sorry. 

E:

–

At this rate, we’ll get to the current season of My Hero Academia just as it comes to an end. Either way, thanks for tagging along with us on our journeys through My Hero and Coffee Prince.

Next time! The coffee shop continues to struggle, and its employees and owners continue to be disconcertingly unconcerned about it. And Class 1-A get a wake-up call about their skill level.