First Impressions / Special A

「遠慮・笑顔」 (Enryo / Egao)
“Restraint / Smile”

Episode at a Glance:
Despite having Tadashi on her mind, Akira tells her father that she doesn’t have anyone she likes and agrees to go to a marriage interview. Later on, the S.A class decides to help Sakura with their school’s cultural festival, so they reluctantly take a tour bus prepared by Hikari over and are greeted by her in a rabbit suit. While the others lose respect for her (and Kei asks for a rival cancellation), Hikari is determined to make it so that everyone has a good time, especially Akira, who’s bothered about Tadashi’s inability to recognize her feelings. Shortly after arriving, the S.A members are welcomed by Yahiro, who throws a grand welcome reception for them as part of a cultural festival rehearsal. During this reception, a bunch of Kokusen students attend to each of them (with Sakura going straight for Jun), but Kei is simply content with Yappi the rabbit, despite her screams. Some of the other girls then ask Akira what her first love was like, which only reminds her of her childhood with Tadashi.

During the actual cultural festival, Sakura and the S.A members open a host club, which features Kei, the uninterested, intimidating host, and Akira, the jealous, pissed-off waitress. For the most part though, everyone seems to be having fun, much to Hikari’s delight; however, she notices that Yahiro’s troubled and seems to want to talk to Akira, so she encourages him to do so. Hearing this, Yahiro is amazed (and annoyed) at how she notices other people’s situation when she never notices her own. Akira then says she’s lost her cellphone, so Sakura starts a campus-wide contest to help find it. With the host club now empty, Yahiro tries to talk to Akira, but his hesitation gives time for Tadashi to step in. Despite his cool words about not laying a hand on Akira, Tadashi quickly changes the mood. Noticing that Akira is fixated on Tadashi during all this, Yahiro slips quietly away. Alone together, Tadashi suspects that something’s been bugging Akira, so he offers to talk about it (or just let her hit him), which cheers her up a bit. Outside, Hikari tells Yahiro that finding Akira’s cellphone for her will make her happy, but Kei soon comes along and tells Hikari to just leave him alone. Realizing that he was planning to look for it already, Kei along with Hikari later approach him and bug him about it.

The three of them then overhear some other students talking about Akira’s phone and how they plan to use it instead of returning it. However, as soon as they see Kei, Yahiro, and Hikari, they try to return the phone in a frightened panic, only to trip in the process. With the phone flying through the air, Yahiro jumps up and catches it, but lands in the flowers/bushes. Shaken up but fine, Yahiro asks Kei to give the phone to Tadashi, thinking it would make Akira happy, but Kei refuses and simply walks away. Agreeing with Kei, Hikari suggests that Yahiro return it to Akira himself, but he feels that he can’t because she hates him. After some strict convincing though, Yahiro returns the phone to Akira and receives her thanks, reminding him of how they first became friends. Later on, Tadashi overhears Akira’s phone call about a marriage interview and encourages her to go, causing Akira to slap him and in tears, say she hates him.

 

Next Episode:
「東堂・狩野」 (Toudou / Karino)
“Toudou / Karino”

Impressions:
Ouran High School Host Club, Special A style! While it was only for a small part of this episode, I could help but think of Ouran right away when I saw the Special A guys in a host club. Anyone else miss Ouran?

Anyway, this episode focused on the love triangle between Tadashi, Akira, and Yahiro, and while it’s evident she has her eyes on the school director’s goofy son, it appears he’s almost as dense as Hikari. The preview and episode title indicate that this will progress a lot further next time though, so I’m looking forward to seeing those two possibly hook up. However, given that Special A’s a comedy, I can’t really see them getting too close, but it’ll be interesting to see nonetheless. In addition, it doesn’t seem like they’ve forgotten about Jun and Sakura, who took a relatively backseat to everything this episode. Given how this series likes to use these type of scenes pretty often, I’m guessing this will be more of a tease than anything. If I’m proven wrong though, all the better! (It’s my way of faking myself out by setting my expectations low. Let’s see if it works…)

On another note, it kind of irked me the wrong way to hear Gotou Yuuko use her half-twisted foreigner voice for Hikari when she was in the rabbit suit. If that was the effect they were going for though, they sure succeeded. Because of this, I couldn’t help but laugh when Kei asked to cancel their rivalry.

Finally, for those of you familiar with Fukuyama Jun‘s more popular role as one Lelouch vi Britannia, I couldn’t help but think, “Takishima Kei, #1 of the S.A class, commands you to die!” during this scene.

 

Cast:
– Hanazono Hikari (華園 光) / Gotou Yuuko (後藤 邑子)
– Takishima Kei (滝島 彗) / Fukuyama Jun (福山 潤)
– Toudou Akira (東堂 明) / Nabatame Hitomi (生天目 仁美)
– Karino Tadashi (狩野 宙) / Shimono Hiro (下野 紘)
– Yamamoto Megumi (山本 芽) / Takagaki Ayahi (高垣 彩陽)
– Yamamoto Jun (山本 純) / Yonaga Tsubasa (代永 翼)
– Tsuji Ryuu (辻 竜) / Horie Kazuma (堀江 一眞)
– Saiga Yahiro (雑賀 八尋) / Taniyama Kishou (谷山 紀章)
– Ushikubo Sakura (牛窪 桜) / Kuwatani Natsuko (桑谷 夏子)
– Girl in dress (ドレスの女子) / Nishino Youko (西野 陽子)
– Prince-like guy (王子風男子) / Shimowada Hiroki (下和田 裕貴)

31 Comments

  4. Not much about main couple, but still a good one, kool ending… wat happens next now…

    Also man new/(or old if i just found it late) preview for Gundam 00 Season 2 was funny… with the Chibi characters… if whats they say is true cool…

    Chimasternmay
    Reply

  6. Oh and just so you all know…..Ouran Host Club was and will be the best anime in its genre!

    As simple as that do not try to defy my statement you will only make hole in the water!

    Viva La Tamaki Senpai!

    Link_Soul
    Reply

  7. OKAY THATS ENOUGH WHERE IS THE KEI AND HIKARI RELATIONSHIP? TADASHI AND AKIRA HAVE BEEN GOING FOR A WHILE NOW!!! I’M KINDA GETTIN’ BORED OF IT… IT’S JUST ME, BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK GUYZ?

    julie
    Reply

  8. Damn, did the anime just push up the stuff about Akira and the marriage interview early? If I remember correctly she doesn’t bring that up until later on in the manga. But well I guess they wanna hurry up the Akira x Tadashi story parts. I really hope this gets a season 2 because 26eps aren’t enough to cover everything. Not to mention the manga isn’t done yet, 14 volumes and still going last I checked.

    GP
    Reply

  9. Ouran all the way!!!

    Anyways, it’s really too bad about Yahiro x Akira. Yahiro is awesome. I love the idea of them as a couple. Akira x Tadashi? Not so much.

    I’ve read about the potential Yahiro x Megumi pairing, but it personally doesn’t make any sense to me.

    fiori
    Reply

  10. I personally love Tadashi x Akira, more than any other pairing in this show, but mostly because I like the characters… and yeah Megumi’s partner is sorta random and out of nowhere, lol.

    PhantomX
    Reply

  11. The last I checked the manga was 80+ chapters. Akira x Tadashi chapter about Akira going to an omiai was around the 30ish chapter. (They skipped a lot and took only the manga chapters with pair developments ^^) So yeah… by the looks of preview pic, we will definitely see Akira and Tadashi hook up next episode… I hope. X3 Kei x Hikari hooking up may be reserved for the finale?

    yuKime
    Reply

  16. If only they were stuck to the manga, this serie would be totally AWESOME! Ouran manga is just NOTHING compared to S.A. (and they’re both started at 2003).

    And here is the big bomb: Show Spoiler ▼

    They also skipped a lot more real plot developments, so skipping those only to show tadashi-akira was just a pity. And if they were really in love with Tadashi&Akira this much, then why didn’t they show the part where the granddaughter of the Kokusenkan Academy’s Director was pretty much ‘friendly’ with Tadashi? Akira was a lot furious (a lot funnier as a result) in the manga. And there is no current plot in this episode!

    But of course your job is always, Divine! You got all the good scenes as screenshots, one can only look at your preview and skip watching the episode for the 17th episode and I’m not exaggerating. I’d like to have a chat with you about S.A, Ouran Koko Hostobu (yeah, I actually like Ouran too >.>), School Rumble and other series ^^

    By the way, will there be another season for S.A? Or the episodes with the new OP theme are being counted as the 2nd season already? Honto ni wakaranaiiii T_T

    Spinel Sun
    Reply

  17. ahem just a few corrections:
    -Your job is the best as always, divine!

    Sorry for the spam just now :/ my mind is woking a bit… funny right now @.@

    anyway, I hope we can talk on MSN or whatever someday ^^

    Spinel Sun
    Reply

  19. Spinel Sun:
    I’m pretty selective in all my screen captures and try to pick a set that highlights the flow of each episode well, so thanks for noticing. =) While many may see this as just being nit picky, I actually rewind and step frame-by-frame pretty often just to get the exact shot I want. Let’s just call that attention to detail shall we? ^_^

    I haven’t heard anything about a second season of Special A as I don’t have time to follow anime news that closely, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. If this changes though, I’m sure we’ll hear about it from one of Omni’s Daily Doses. As for those scenes you mentioned regarding Kei and Hikari, I get the feeling that the producers may be reordering events so that they can conclude the anime adaptation with those two. We’re down to seven remaining episodes now, so it (unfortunately) doesn’t leave a lot of time to explore every aspect of the manga.

    If you want to chat, we can do so on IRC somewhere (e.g. #animeblogger@irc.highway.net or somewhere on irc.rizon.net); otherwise, you’re always welcome to shoot me a mail. I can’t say I’m too familiar with the S.A manga though, as I choose to pick up the ARIA mangas instead while in Japan, but I’m always open for discussion.

    Finally, I always read all the comments to my posts too (as they never reach the number that CODE GEASS and Macross Frontier get), so I encourage you (and everyone else) to continue commenting. This way, we can get more people involved in the discussion too. Also, this type of feedback is our main method of gauging a show’s popularity and how much time we should invest in it.

    divine
    Reply

  20. The scanlation for the manga hasn’t gotten to any megumi stuff yet so please use spoiler tags guys.

    I hope the scanlation picks up though, being 7 volumes behind and all, not good.

    GP
    Reply

  23. I think it would be great if the marriage interview is between Tadashi and Akira and only Tadashi knew about it. That boy doesn’t look as dumb as he comes off. He is devoted to Akira always!

    Rumi
    Reply

  27. I like both the anime and the manga, but I think I’d be satisfied with just one season of Special A. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to wrap up the Tadashi-Akira arc next week, move on to some Kei-related plot points, tackle one more pairing, and then devote the rest of the season to conclude the Kei-Hikari relationship.

    dementedchris
    Reply

  30. Does anyone else see the random eyelashes they added onto the characters?
    Personally i think it ruins them. They look awful! they looked better before, the guys look too girly, its getting on my nerves.

    Chloe
    Reply

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