Featured Attraction

Featured Attraction
Chapter	113 of 129 (list of chapters)
Published	October 27, 2021 (2021-10-27)
Page count	18
Major characters	Paulo, Daisy, David
Minor characters	Amaya’s dad
Locations	Daisy’s house, Roseville cinema
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Paulo takes Daisy and David to see an anime movie, which Daisy was rather hoping would be a date. Then the film starts playing in English, and a theater full of purists decides that simply will not do.

Synopsis

Paulo drives David over to pick up Daisy for a screening of “My Endless Sunshower”, an anime film David insists is much more than “just a cartoon”. Daisy answers the door in a red dress with a matching flower in her hair, beaming at Paulo. Then she spots David behind him, and her face falls. She had thought this was a date. David works this out mid-apology and tries to bolt down the front steps, but a mortified Daisy hauls him back: “IT’S TOO AWKWARD NOW! YOU HAVE TO COME!!”

The trouble at the theater is David’s doing, in a roundabout way. He booked the dub screening, which he considers objectively inferior, only because Paulo refused to “spend the whole movie reading words”. David then peels off for popcorn, so Paulo and Daisy take their seats alone in a theater packed with cosplayers. The film opens on a cheerful girl on a sunny hill speaking English, and the whole audience groans at once. Fans start walking out on the spot. Before long a girl in overalls plants herself in front of the screen and points out that the tickets never said sub or dub. She leads the crowd out to demand a subtitled restart or a full refund.

Only Hannah remains seated ahead of them, and Paulo and Daisy settle in to watch the film together. Paulo waves off her apologies (“Let’s just watch it together”) and gets genuinely absorbed in the movie. Daisy, blushing, rests her head on his shoulder, and he doesn’t react. Moments later the screen goes white anyway. The protesters return in triumph with Amaya’s dad, a theater employee, who apologizes and restarts the film with subtitles. David wanders back in with his popcorn, delighted he didn’t miss a thing, while Paulo sputters that the subtitles are the exact same words everyone just walked out on.

Hannah turns around to ask if they’re really playing the sub now. Paulo snipes that the geeks got what they wanted, and she sheepishly explains that she has severe dyslexia and can’t follow subtitled films. She had come specifically for the dub day, and the film’s limited run is in its final week. Paulo sits there turning red, then bolts for the parking lot. “Where’s MIKE.” he growls. “I need to give a nerd a swirlie.”

Character dynamics

Daisy makes the most of the near-private screening.

• Paulo and Daisy: Daisy has been sweet on him since well before this chapter. At her birthday picnic she leaned on his shoulder and told him she’d always wanted to feel that close. Here she dresses up for what she believes is a date and rests her head on his shoulder in the near-empty theater. Paulo misses what she is trying to do. Daisy never tells him how she feels, and he still does not understand that she wanted a date.
• David and Daisy: David is now in on the secret. He arrives with no idea Daisy wanted a date and works it out from her mortified backpedaling at the door. His beaming in the back seat makes his support for Daisy and Paulo impossible to miss. Daisy shakes him by the shoulders and screams at him to stop. He has been rooting for this pairing for ages. Back in Golden Hour he wailed “Oh no not my OTP!!” over the two of them. David is gone for popcorn throughout the walkout and returns confused to find the film restarting with subtitles.

Trivia & observations

David tries to make a run for it. Daisy has other ideas.

• Veronica’s commentary under the final page says the chapter is based on a friend’s real experience of watching an anime dub in a cinema: “just replace Paulo-Daisy-David with two guys having a nonromantic date.” The almost-date angle was invented for the comic.
• The in-universe movie is a Studio Ghibli parody. Per Veronica’s commentary, her one regret was not giving the protagonist “MIYAZAKI FACE”.
• The theater’s background nerds were designed live on a stream for the BCB Discord before the chapter ran, per Veronica’s commentary.
• Veronica originally scripted Paulo yelling “nobody cares what you think!!” at the girl in overalls, describing the moment as “Paulo basically being what Daisy wishes she could be”.
• Emma, the ticket vendor caught staring at Paulo, has a bit of a history with him. She first blushed her way through his flirting at this same cinema in Boy Toy, and later blushed at him again from a carnival ticket booth.
• This is the first appearance of both Hannah and Amaya’s dad. Amaya herself has been seen working this cinema’s concession stand well before her father turned up.
• As for whether the swirlie ever happened, Veronica said on Tumblr that David and Daisy likely calmed Paulo down before he got anywhere near Mike, and that Paulo’s mind went to Mike rather than Abbey “because Abbey would absolutely kill him”.

Related chapters

• Fuel Economy: The previous chapter, in which Paulo earns his license and gets a car of his own. Veronica’s commentary says she wrote it specifically so this chapter wouldn’t need an excuse for how Paulo could drive everyone to the movies.
• Moments Apart: Daisy’s shoulder lean has happened once before. At her birthday picnic in that chapter, she nestled against Paulo’s shoulder under a tree and told him “I’ve always wanted to feel this close to you.”
• Rain Check: Daisy finally tells Paulo how she feels in this chapter. After some prodding from Lucy, she blurts “But I love him!!”, and she and Paulo get together at last.