Split Screen: Enlightened Conspiracy

Thanks for tuning in to Split Screen! This week’s edition features the return of Coffee Prince scene stealer Sweeper, an unexpectedly DIY renovation, and a hefty dose of failure. Read on for some sweet, sweet caffeine!

(New to Split Screen? Read the whole series here!)

Coffee Prince Third Cup (from minute 30)

M: First, a quick spelling correction from last week: It’s Wangja Coffee.

E: I told you there was a “j” in there.

M: That explains why my translation efforts failed so completely. 

E: Apparently it means, “prince,” judging by how Han-gyul just wants to call it Prince but in English now and that’s funny.

M: English names are ~~~*cool*~~~

E: What did his shirt say? Enlightened Conspiracy?

M: I think that’s right. 

E: I’d listen to that band.

M: I’d go to that coffee shop. Let’s grab a cuppa at Enlightened Conspiracy. The EC!

E: You won’t forget the name. If you know what’s good for you.

M: Now we have clarity that Coffee Prince actually is a double meaning. 

E: I didn’t even think of that! Wow! It’s been a long week!

M: I don’t even know how to continue. 

E: We got three whole hires at the Coffee Prince (winks, nudges hat). Including one new character. Who is not Waffle Man.

M: Ha-rim! So proud of myself for remembering his name. 

E: Ha-rim, hater of rats, painter of faces. 

M: Queer Eye-r of coffee shops. 

E: I can’t believe they saved on budget by just having the cast build their set for them.

M: Feels like it should violate the regulations of several unions, but I applaud some good cost-cutting!

E: On Boys Over Flowers, they got to bond by going to exotic locations or ice skating or pretending to beat each other up but on this show, you get to bond by building a whole building! Seems equivalent.

M: They probably didn’t even need to spray Han-gyul to get that glistening sweat shot. That’s genuine sweat from tearing up the floor. Not the dance floor, the actual wooden floor. 

E: Either/or!

M: He probably did do some grooving to “I Want You Back for Good.” I know I did. 

E: By the Baseballs. I’ll link it here so that all readers can listen and relive the experience. (EDITOR EMMA: Actually, The Baseballs did a cover of the song. The original is by Take That. Here you are)

M: Other than the big remodel, not too much happened until the very end of the episode. 

E: I’m trying to think what else happened beyond just the remodel. We got some…Sweeper! How could I forget the Sweeper time?

M: Oh forgive me, Sweeper! The highlight of the episode. The only performer whose management said “no no no, he cannot build, he is too important.”

E: He is too white and fluffy for menial labor.

M: And for basic tricks. Will not shake. Will only allow you to touch his tongue a little. 

E: But we did get some new relationship turmoil with Yoo-joo and the man we now know is named Han-sung.

M: Sung, like music, because he’s a music producer. I know I said this before but I completely forgot for several weeks. Choi Han-sung, to be fair, so we weren’t that far off. 

E: The issue with this relationship is that there is so much history that we have not been given access to…which would be fine if they were the main couple. But since they get so little time per episode, I feel like I just know nothing about them for the amount they want me to care.

M: They aren’t that fun to spend time with as a viewer. Han-gyul and Eun-chan are always getting up to wacky hijinks and having fun banter, and these two are just like “let’s eat! We like each other!…Or do we?”

E: I mean, we’ve seen them having fun in flashbacks. And I really don’t think I would be as down on them if they had more time actually spent on them. But the show is really only giving the bare minimum which really just means this whole subplot should have been simplified a lot.

M: It’s obviously building to a love-square. Pentagram.

E: Quadrangle.

M: Sure. I’ve been hating on Yoo-joo a lot while we watch, but after some soul-searching, I realize it’s actually Han-sung I don’t like. He’s not very charismatic, he’s the jealous type, he’s got a mean streak. Bad dude. 

E: Again, I just think all of this would be less of a problem if they had any time to develop. Which they just don’t. Which means these characters should have been simplified a lot.

M: I’m just giving spicy takes so we can look back on them and laugh later. 

E: No, I agree with you! I’m never excited when we cut away from Han-gyul and Eun-chan to them like I would be if we were cutting to Ga-eul or something.

M: Ga-eul set an impossibly high standard. 

E: I miss Ga-eul.

M: How do you feel about the sister’s boyfriend getting thrown into the mix at Coffee Prince?

E: The poor man. He’s not cut out for this. Technically, he’s a good hire. Because he works hard, can lift a lot of stuff, and fulfills an archetype that you don’t have yet. But nobody should have put him in charge of ordering the coffee.

M: You’ve got to assign tasks that play to people’s strengths. 

E: I think it was supposed to be Eun-chan ordering it.

M:  It was, but she was busy doing her weird APOLOGIZE thing about a little paint on her arm. 

E: Listen, she’s a little touchy because she’s wrapped her chest in Ace bandage and probably cannot breathe. 

M: It seems like we’re going to have to watch her bind a lot. It’s dangerous, kids. You’ve got to get a safe binder.

E: And even then, don’t wear it all the time. You have to take it off sometimes. It’s bad for your ribs.

M: Eun-chan will suffer to support her family, I guess. Glad they’re in on the secret, by the way. That would have been too much stress to believably sustain. 

E: Now there is no reason not to tell her family. Back when she was a gigolo, I understood why she didn’t tell them where the money came from.

M: She’s still a part-time gigolo, right? She just also works at a coffee shop? Maybe as a host?

E: I don’t think his grandmother is forcing brides on him anymore, because she’s decided he’ll marry this coffee shop instead.

M: So he’s really the Coffee Princess! 

E: Exactly!

M: Just kidding, they can be Prince and Prince, it’s the 21st century. 

E: Anyway, we leave this episode off with way too much coffee being delivered. Coffee Prince proactively takes its place as Most Caffeinated just by sheer amount of coffee beans.

M: Literally mountains of beans. What do you think they’re going to do with all of them?

E: They’re gonna have to figure something out! I mean, a tenth of it will go in their coffee stores. Maybe they can keep double that and it’d be fine. But that still leaves them with 80% of the coffee to do something with.

M: They can sell some bags of beans. They can grind them up and make tiramisu?

E: I don’t think there’s that much coffee in tiramasu.

M: They’ll sell a lot of tiramisu. Or coffee flavored waffles!

E: Tiramasu waffles.

M: Now you’re talking. 

E: But I brought up that it was Eun-chan who was supposed to order the coffee, because I don’t feel it’s too unjustified that she’s taking the blame for it. Like she just yelled 500 numbers at that guy in between “Apologize”s.

M: I’m surprised they got coffee at all and not like, french cheese or something. 

E: Yeah, considering how chaotic that scene was, only getting a digit off is pretty impressive. He could have ordered 200 bags of 20kgs. 

M: All of the coffee in Korea. 

E: That’s one way to beat the competition.

M: Romance Tracker? 

E: Han-gyul still has a bit of a crush on Yoo-joo while she’s also talking to her ex, Donkey Kong, on the phone.

M: It’s tough to compete with Donkey Kong. 

E: I dunno, I think he’s sort of a low level Smash character.

M: Higher level than any of these dudes. 

E: But I don’t feel like the show will push too far with that. 

M: It’s literally the only thing tying this other couple to the show, except I guess that now Han-gyul and Han-sung are confirmed cousins. I think we’ve got a while to go. 

E: Eun-chan is best buds with Han-sung too. Got his number and everything.

M: You’re right, I forgot that. I sort of thought the issue with the beans was going to be her saying his number by mistake instead of the bean serial number or whatever. 

E: That would have been funny but less disastrous.

M: Ah well. It’s my own enlightened conspiracy theory I guess. 

My Hero Academia S3E22: “A Talk About Your Quirk”

E: Wait, let me go pull up your predictions, I wanna know if you thought Todoroki or Bakugo would pass. (*long pause*) Oh, Kaminari did pass, but you said he wouldn’t. So it was all wrong.

M: That one was really for the lolz. 

E: You’ll notice in the opening sequence that all the students except for Bakugo and Todoroki are jumping in celebration at the beginning. Hm. Wonder why.

M: I don’t watch the openings for lore. Swe swe. 

E: That’s good because there usually is a lot of foreshadowing in them.

M: I thought there was going to be something with Todoroki and Endeavor that never materialized the way it seemed in the credits.

E: Well, he was dealing with someone who saw him as a mirror of his father. Right?

M: Yeah, but I thought it would be about the dog orphanage. 

E: That’s gonna be Season 6. Got a while to go.

M: Yes, season six that I will get to when I die. 

E: We’ll be caught up by then! Watching it week to week!

M: What a crazy thought. 

E: That’s what I do now, you know?

M: No, that’s not possible. 

E: We also found out that Toga was impersonating Camie from Shiketsu. Hence why she was so obsessed with Deku. It was not yet another girl obsessed with Deku. It was the same one! Yay! We haven’t gone full harem yet!

M: Deku’s real quirk is that he’s irresistible to women, he just doesn’t know it. 

E: I think that’s the Quirk of many anime protagonists.

M: Eun-chan’s is Sniff. 

E: Anyway, the reason she could turn into Uraraka is that she had taken her blood at the training camp. And now, she’s got an itty bitty little bit of Deku’s blood. Because she transforms into people by drinking blood. She was probably a hit at parties.

M: Does it last forever? 

E: That hasn’t been explained yet by the Present Mic monologue.

M:  I meant, can she now turn into Uraraka whenever she wants, or does she need a blood shot each time? A bloody mary. 

E: I mean, the show hasn’t told us yet, but I don’t think that’s really a spoiler, so do you want to know the answer?

M: Ugh, I guess not.  

E: You’ll find out eventually, I can at least say that.

M: I just want to know if All-Might is going to have two sons now forever. 

E: It’s super cute that Deku was taking pictures of his license and was like “I gotta tell Mom and All Might” like he doesn’t mean Mom and Dad.

M: How many times has he called All-Might Dad by mistake in class. 

E: Gotta be at least four times.

M: That seems like a reasonable estimate. Probably Bakugo is going to talk about that in the next episode. 

E: Remember when Todoroki thought he was All Might’s secret love child? Maybe he should have just leaned into that.

M: I’m fully expecting Deku to go with that next episode. 

E: Bakugo’s known him since they were little babbies, I don’t know if that will work.

M: Where is Deku’s dad then?

E: Apparently he could breathe fire? That’s all we know about him.

M: Did I already say that Todoroki and Deku are probably cousins? 

E: Probably at some point. Oh man, oh man, that’d be something. 

M: Uncle Endeavor. Granddad Endeavor. Grampy. 

E: Noooo!

M: This means Deku has a stake in the dog shelter too. His inheritance. 

E: Also this episode, All Might went to the appropriately titled Tartarus to go talk with All for One.

M: Tartarus, which if you didn’t know, is a Greek hell. 

E: All for One seems like a mansplainer, so that felt in character. Plus, hey! There are definitely some tweenagers out there who do not know that.

M: I guess he’s going to get out of prison, huh? 

E: I dunno! He wants Shigaraki to spread his own wings for now. He’s the type of bird that just shoves their kid out of the nest while All Might’s the one who sort just slowly nudges them until they go on their own. One approach is crueler than the other, but we’ll have to see if either is effective.

M: I thought that sending him to prison was the show’s way of making him disappear, but the fact that he’s still around worries me about his escape chances. 

E: Yeah, I dunno. He’s a real big bad though, so I’d think it was just sloppy writing if he entirely exited.

M: He took away All-Might’s power, isn’t that significant enough?

E: True. I do like the way the show has created power vacuums in society, but managed to still keep the people who previously filled those vacuums around. This show would be hella different if All Might had died at that point in the story, maybe too different. But also keeping him around to see what’s happening without his huge presence provides a lot of interesting fodder for his character. He has to come to terms with the fact that he can’t be that Symbol of Peace anymore. 

M: Now that he’s screaming about not dying though, I’m substantially more worried about him. 

E: Oh! Small localization corner that won’t necessarily mean much to you right now. I don’t know which is the more accurate translation, but the dub has something like “the future you want won’t come to pass” which specifically attributes this sentence to All for One. Whereas the sub has “the future that has been written will not come to pass” (or foretold or something, I don’t remember the exact phrasing) which doesn’t attribute that “future” to anyone specifically. Which may be slight foreshadowing. That’s all!

M: I don’t like this stuff about predictions and foretelling. 

E: It’s more that the dub has him say it’s All for One’s vision of the future versus just a vision of the future. 

M: Iiiiiinteresting. 

E: It’s been a while since there was a localization corner because I don’t remember these episodes very well.

M: Guess we’ll have to start watching more regularly! Haha, just kidding, I have two different out-of-town trips in February. 

E: And then finally we close on the set up for the next episode. Bakugo confirms that, yes, he has finally figured it out after having been carelessly given like twenty clues.

M: Deku’s such a dunce for that first reveal. I can’t get over it. What an idiotic thing to say. 

E: I mean, it was dumb, but he has such irrational respect for Bakugo, and he though he owed an explanation to him. I understood why he wanted to justify himself in that moment, way back in season one.

M: This relationship has never felt quite as narratively satisfying to me as I think the show wants it to be. 

E: I’ve always liked Bakugo as a character, so this might just be my own bias talking, but I think this next episode is where everything coalesced really nicely for me.

M: Well that’s exciting, because so far for me, it’s mostly felt pretty dumb on both sides. Deku is irritating but not worth having a lifelong hatred for, and Bakugo has a dope quirk, but isn’t that cool. It’s always felt like their feelings for each other are out of proportion. 

E: That’s fair, I suppose. Although it does come from a decade and a half of history with each other. Like, it seems like they could never escape each other’s orbits for long enough to set things aside. That was my reading up to this point as far as I remember at least.

M: Maybe I need some flashbacks to their late elementary years. I’ve seen a lot of them at age four before Deku knew he was quirkless and I’ve seen a lot of them as fifteen year olds, but in my mind, there’s a bit of a gap between those where it doesn’t seem like they really should have spent that much time together, except in class? Why would they? 

E: I mean, I think they live pretty close together too. But anyway, I think it’s probably best to revisit after the next episode and still see how you’re feeling on it. Which valid either way, just saying, but there’s a lot to happen, I guess.

M: I am excited for the relationship to progress a bit. It’s felt a little stagnant this season. 

E: Anyway, since we already proactively gave the Caffeinated Award to Coffee Prince…and they probably get Lawsuit too since nothing really bad happened on this week’s My Hero, right?

M: All for One might have a case for cruel and unusual punishment. Dude can’t even think. 

E: Fair. Get All for One a lawyer!

M: Call the ACLU. The FJCLU. 

E: So, I’m pretty sure you already spied the title, but are you ready for it?

M: I would like to be wrong. 

E: It’s called “Deku vs. Kacchan, Part 2”

M: Well, first, did not remember there had been a part one. 

E: It was the first season, the training Bakugo referenced in this episode. The episode before Deku spilled the beans on accident.

M: Right, I figured that had to be it. Okay, prediction one: Bakugo and Deku have a conversation, but Bakugo forces Deku to refer to him as Lord Explosion Murder and/or speaks in the third person as LEM the entire time. 

E:

M: Prediction two: the gay awakening we’ve all been waiting for. No wonder Deku didn’t notice Uraraka’s crush. No wonder they both idolized a large muscly man. 

E:

M: Prediction three: We get twenty minutes of internal monologue from both boys until Aizawa comes to the scene and gives them detention for sneaking out. 

E: Dadzawa.

M: Him and Joke agreeing to go train? Fueled my shipper heart. 

E:

M: That’s not appropriate for my prediction. 

E: It was for the shipping. Besides I assumed the inner monologue went along with the gay awakening.

M: Prediction four: They both say the words “I know what I have to do now.”

E:

M:  Prediction five: Bakugo tries to force Deku to feed him one of his hairs. Or vice versa. Maybe Deku wants to give up his quirk. 

E:

–

Thanks for joining us on Split Screen! Emma here. Remember, you can watch Coffee Prince for free on Vudu and My Hero Academia’s dub on Hulu or Funimation, your choice. catch up and then watch tortuously slowly with us!

Next week! Deku and Kacchan have a small tiff and we find out what in the heckin world they are gonna do with all that coffee. Hint. It’s not tiramasu.