The Day I Became a God – Ep. 2

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You’d think now that Yota buys Hina’s omniscience, The Day I Became a God would start focusing on the latter’s warning about the world in a month. Surprisingly, that is not the case as that whole detail remains sidelined as ever. Admittedly, we’re still very early in this show and vague plotlines are a staple of Jun Maeda’s writing (and Maeda has made that work before). Still, I must admit that I’m getting frustrated here.

Episode 2 begins with Yota taking Hina to his house, his parents apparently being completely okay with this sudden arrangement. The best answer Yota gets out of his parents is that Hina is a distant relative of theirs (and yet they didn’t know her by name) and a later scene does confirm that they know who she is and they’ve been awaiting her. That isn’t ominous at all.

A lot of questions arise here. Assuming Hina is a relative, does that mean she’s actually human? If that’s the case, how she is omniscient? Or perhaps this is to imply that the Narukami family are actually deities of some kind (all their names are a play on words anyway). How do Yota’s parents know about Hina? How did they know she would arrive at their doorstep? Is Hina actually a distant relative? The adjective “distant” feels like a very deliberate choice of words too. I’m getting the feeling that Hina isn’t some third cousin of Yota’s.

The rest of the episode continues the plot of Yota trying to win Izanami’s heart via Hina’s shenanigans. The first plan involves Yota helping his sister Sora (Yuki Kuawahara) with her film project and using the scripts Hina writes for them (all of which are nothing but movie references) as a pretense to ask Izanami out again. Needless to say, it doesn’t go very well for Yota. I’ll admit that seeing an anime reference Rocky made for a surreal time and Sora is hilarious with how much of a student filmmaker she is (truly a visionary for cinema). That said, the whole sequence overstays its welcome and the references will elude you if you’ve never seen the movies it’s referring (I never saw Armageddon so the respective spoof bored me). Worse is that this is all filler as the next plan is far more worth Yota’s time (and the audience’s for that matter).

After helping Sora with her project, Hina reveals to Yota that Izanami plans on becoming a music composer, something that Yota never caught on. Thus, the plan is to have Yota practice a piece Hina composes for the piano and then play that to impress Izanami. The whole plot kind of reminds me a bit of Angel Beats!; more specifically, Iwasawa’s episode and its theme of how music resonates with people (honestly, I’m stunned Jun Maeda has yet to write a show themed entirely around music). More importantly, this fleshes out Yota and Izanami’s relationship into something that’s actually compelling.

For all the years Yota has known her, he failed to notice Izanami’s interest in music and need a supposed god to tell him about it. All his attempts to impress her and the one that succeeds is the one that actually appeals directly to her interests. The best part is that the one who actually ends up playing Hina’s piece is Izanami. Yota succeeds not by playing the piano really well but by making his friend happy and getting her to open up more to him. Even though he chickens out from asking her out again, I think that’s the right decision for him to make for now. Deep down, he wants to know Izanami more first before trying again.

What I don’t get is what’s in it for Hina? What does she gain by helping Yota improve his love life? Maybe it’s to gain his trust but this seems like an awful lot of investment on her part, especially when you find out that this entire effort takes place over the course of six days. It’s entirely possible this ties into the doomsday plot but how it does is beyond me. Then again, we don’t know really know how exactly the world will end either.

I’m getting the feeling that this episode isn’t the last we’ll see of the whole student film element. A lot of the characters seemed to be tied to filmmaking, be it Sora being a film student, Hina’s hack scriptwriting, and Izanami wanting to compose movie soundtracks. There’s been some hints dropped as well. The OP shows the cast filming something. The cold opening of the first episode curiously had Hina seated on what appears to be a director’s chair. This episode ends with Sora coming back after meeting with her peers and getting injured in the process (which methinks the drama is right at the horizon). I’m guessing this filmmaking element is going to come into play some more but how on Earth does that tie to the world ending in less than a month? Some clarification from this show would be much appreciated.

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