‘Dense-saki’, ‘Slow-saki’… Yamada is really having fun cooking up nicknames for Sasaki in ‘Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You’, since he still hasn’t figured out that Tayama is just a fake name. And that she is, in fact, both his new smoking buddy and the cute cashier Yamada.
Also Read: Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You Episode 5 Review
Episode 6 of the anime begins with Sasaki worrying about an upcoming health check-up being held for everybody at his work place, so he tries to cut back on smoking before the appointment with the doctor.
“If the doctor told you to quit smoking, would you?”
“I don’t know. That would be tough”
When Yamada senses that Sasaki might, in fact, stop smoking, she realizes it would mean an end to their little friendly chats during their smoke breaks together. No more smoking behind the supermarket anymore. A though which instantly saddens her and she then starts to wonder if she should finally tell him the truth. Her senior Goto, who has already been ‘shipping’ the older man with her employee, advised Yamada to do the same.
A flashback to eight years ago shows Yamada as a young rookie supermarket employee struggling to adapt to her new workplace, with repeated customer complaints gradually breaking her morale. However, one kind customer steps up for her on a particularly trying day, when another customer in line clearly attempts to bully her. Viewers see that her rescuer that day might have been Sasaki, although it’s indicated that he doesn’t visit the supermarket again for quite a while.
Having seen quite a few Japanese romances, I’m beginning to wonder why creators are so insistent on slipping in some past connection between their protagonists, as if it somehow makes their relationship more ‘karmic’ or meaningful. Until this point in ‘Smoking Behind the Supermarket With You’, it has been genuinely heart-warming to watch two complete strangers form a bond simply by sharing a few smokes and conversations. There was absolutely no need for the sudden ‘oh, by the way, Sasaki helped her eight years ago, so technically their connection goes way back’ revelation.
I can give multiple examples. For instance, even the recent Japanese action-comedy ‘Viral Hit’ throws in a contrived flashback revealing that protagonist Shimura’s crush from his part-time job was actually someone he had met as a child, when he did something kind enough for her to remember him years later. That show wasn’t even particularly interested in their romance, which somehow made the whole ‘they were connected all along’ revelation feel even more unnecessary.
Anyway, even though I am whining about the flashback, it was a pretty cute scene, which cements Sasaki’s gentle and easily flustered personality. The episode is nostalgic, slightly emotional, and almost marks a new turning point in his friendship with Tayama, with the latter seriously considering if she should end her dual-personality game.
Given how clueless the older man is, ‘Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You’ can probably go 20 more episodes without the truth ever coming out. Six episodes down, I am definitely a little disappointed that Yamada hasn’t even asked Sasaki out for a little meal, even if it’s just to hang out as friends and nothing else. I haven’t read the original manga, so I am hoping some other characters get to come to the forefront to make things a little more interesting, even though the current laid-back pace of the series is also not all that bad.
Watch ‘Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You’ on Netflix/ Crunchyroll.
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