S01.E08: Ad Guy

[AnimeMania]

Advertising is based on one thing: happiness.

Premiere Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2024     Hulu     

[arc]

I was not expecting a musical number. Wow. Also, the meta layers are multiplying as Willis is a detective so famous he's shooting ads and thus playing himself on video.

"lost my scent" but I feel like it could also be "lost my 'ccent" as in "accent". But I also love how that deodorant ad recapped most of his arc on the show so far, from delivery guy to tech guy to detective.

Josh is kinda hilarious in an off-putting, "the bad guy has secretly taken a post as an underling for reasons" sort of way. Everything he says is just off somehow, like he's midway through brainwashing Willis.

I've been wondering about what Lily's story would lead to. Renting a Chinatown SRO to a non-Chinese couple did hint at gentrification, and now she's staging a home outside of Chinatown and being told to turn down the Chinese-ness: "They're very … specific."

OK, the watch ad is where I'm starting to think this is an extended dream sequence, because it's so very weird. I guess the whole show has been weird, but still. But then again, Lily really was calling him, so that's a plot thread happening outside his sphere, which argue against this whole "ad guy" thing being a dream sequence.

BTW, I looked up "Vermeidung", and it's German for "avoidance", which certainly seems fitting considering he's been avoiding calls from his mom, and also this detective job that was supposedly another step towards finding his brother has been just a series of distractions from it instead. (I guess "Deep Water" was similarly named to hint at Johnny's boat sinking? Oof, that's dark.)

Lily's arc reminds me of what's happening to real Chinatowns all over North America, which are hollowing out their traditional population as new Chinese immigrants tend to move to "ethnoburbs" and richer, generally non-Chinese people gentrify the downtown or downtown-adjacent Chinatowns.

Aw, Fatty! I missed him last episode. In reading articles about this show, I came across one take that said the takes on Chinese American and Asian American roles in society in the book -- just published a few years ago -- were slightly outdated in a post Shang-Chi, post-Crazy Rich Asians world. But I dunno, the Chinese chili crisp business Fatty is running is very of the moment. (Related, I remember a while back one person saying sriracha was one thing, but non-Asians would never gravitate to chili crisp. (And they liked chili crisp! It wasn't a diss on the food but a take on the limits of adventurousness in non-Asian people) but now brands like Lao Gan Ma and Fly by Jing are where Huy Fong's sriracha was a decade ago.) And Willis saying that Fatty basically took a standard chili crisp recipe and packaged it for white people is of course a synecdoche for any kind of packaging minoritized cultures for the mainstream, but also specifically chili crisp is a very current reference.

When Anna visited Willis at his fancy downtown apartment, note how she didn't take off her shoes upon entry. This is a key thing in Chinese culture, and it's been shown several times that happens reflexively in Chinatown. But of course, Willis is living in a big fancy downtown apartment now, not a Chinatown SRO. Well, a big fancy apartment with dream-like architecture that connects directly back to his mom's SRO.

BTW, don't miss out on the post-credits scene.

Edited Monday at 10:36 AM by arc