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「学園祭って初めてなの」 (Gakuensai tte Hajimete na n)
“My First School Festival”
Oh Mobseka, just when I thought I couldn’t like you more you go ahead and prove me wrong. We may still be awaiting the next big arc to let Leon run loose in, but between harem building, marriage proposals, and the quickest comedic relief this side of total adorableness, I have absolutely no issue with where things are heading. No when I’m still laughing at the sheer temerity on display.
An interesting bit of discussion popped up last week concerning Leon’s self-awareness related to romance and this episode arguably did a good job of building on that. You can see it best with his interactions with Olivia and Angelica: he’s fully open to accepting voluptuous cutie pies into his life, yet firmly believes the mob label is just too large a chasm to overcome – ignoring the fact it actually doesn’t matter given the kid is now a bloody knight and has (if only quietly) support from dukes and monarchs both. Personally I like this sort of take on the usual dense protagonist, because for all it keeps Leon within the expected harem bounds – i.e. never favouring or settling on one girl – it also lets him be his nonchalant, no shits given, hate the bishounens self by damn near succeeding with hilariously taking the “fuck your mother” gamer banter to its literal conclusion. Say what you want about Mobseka embracing all the tropes, but damn if it’s not doing so with style.
Another satisfying aspect repeatedly cropping up is in regards to Leon’s resistance against the established order. Although Mobseka is again, outside of the matriarchal flip, quite stereotypical in regards to its setup, it has a very good understanding of how to eke out dopamine hits in certain situations. The crushing of this week’s antagonist for example worked well because it had both sides of the coin: Leon had to kowtow to the powers that be, yet he also exacted his revenge in the most fashionable of styles. Many harem setups often restrict themselves to the former as a means of reinforcing the lead’s innocence and uniqueness or to elicit sympathy, so getting the one-two punch of that and schadenfreude is pleasantly surprising given the usual – but a surprise also in line with Leon’s own personality and objectives. The fun going forward will be seeing how Leon’s willingness to act translates into romance developments since moving in harem country will necessitate a certain degree of humility or reservedness on the part of this tea master in training he has yet to fully display.
Good thing then it looks like we might be seeing such a shift happen shortly. After all, when a mysterious new girl enters the picture, best be sure some aren’t going to respond nicely to the new competition.
I just started volume 6 of the light novels and I will say that the most foolish action to take in this world is to piss off Leon, particularly by picking on a beautiful girl with “huge tracts of land”,
He does seem extremely greedy at times, but high ranking nobles have high taxes and relying purely on Luxion to generate money is a bad long term plan since everyone and their brother has started to lust after Luxion.
Well he did take most of their money. Also most of these kids came from rich family and always look down to people who they considerate below their station. Most of them still see him as a country upstart who humiliate them and took all of their money so of course they still hate him. Just because people preaching honor and chivalry doesn’t mean they themselves practice them, especially when it come to a bunch of spoiled brats.
I think the money is secondary to Leon right now, he’s got everything he could want and then some so he’s focused more on marriage and securing a comfy life which money alone won’t help acquire. Most of the anger towards Leon stems from him so thoroughly crushing heirs to the established order.
> I have absolutely no issue with where things are
> heading.
I do have but a tiny issue…why is it that every student outside Leon’s troupe still hates Leon? I think it’s clear by now Leon’s the better man to bet on. Yet the student body decided to react like those who hated Naofumi from Tate no Yūsha no Nariagari.
> hilariously taking the “fuck your mother” gamer
> banter to its literal conclusion.
You know if Leon takes the queen’s heart and hooks up with her, my jaw will drop all the way down to the ground. Then think “ Leon’s the man.”
Because as mentioned above it’s he’s an upstart who isn’t playing by the rules. If Leon had acted within the expected guidelines of a proper noble he would’ve ruffled feathers, but likely saw less outright anger. This is a world all about perception and theatre where your impression arguably matters more than your actions.
Leon went too much against the established order of things and custom/etiquette. Challenging the five leads, who are all wealthy/famous/important/popular, got him disliked. If he’d won the duels in a polite way and been humble about it, such as being some chivalrous knight, he might have avoided a lot of the hate. However, openly bragging about your victories and gloating over the money you made from them, disparaging your opponents during the fight, getting rewarded for it when everyone considers you an upstart (and they expected you to be punished), etc. Combine all that with him being a country male, who is considered a nobody by most – yes, he’s the first big successful adventurer in decades, but most of the academy attendees are from richer established families so they don’t care – and you get all the elite hating him. They don’t want to see a successful country noble rise up in rank. They don’t like his behaviour and lack of manners. They don’t respect his achievements, which is really most of the students projecting as they haven’t got any of their own. In contrast, most high ranking nobles who are adults have, at least, an okay opinion of him at this stage. He wouldn’t have gotten promoted if all the country’s adult, actually in charge nobles opposed it.
Exactly, all Leon had to do was act in a more noble fashion everyone expected and a lot of the resulting anger would’ve been muted. But that obviously wouldn’t make for a fun story 😀
If I were Leon I wouldn´t simp as hard for the Tea teacher when is voiced by Aizen himself XD Maybe he just wants to use Leon to conquer this world, with manners. “The tea party is going just as I planned.”
Probably XD, he’s the truest of gentleman who derives satisfaction from seeing his proteges succeed. And if it results in one of those students dominating everything, even better haha
Talking about this story has made me think a lot about the heroes and villains of the many, many stories I have experienced in my more than sixty years of life. Particularly, in the stories that we tell young people, Leon, a rude, crude, uppity guy would almost always have been the villain. We do like stories about the weak beating the strong, but the weak must be pure of heart.
I like they way it’s kind of implied Leon drew the hate to himself intentionally. Bc
1) He doesn’t really care about titles. (With Lux, he doesn’t really have to worry about money and could live comfortable as a commoner, probably would make marrying easier also)
2)I think he was trying to prevent the backlash hitting Angie.
He is sorta right about the girls. I think he rules Liva out bc she’s the protagonist and is needed for the plot(remember the game had alot of combat that was hard enough he had to buy Lux…so stuff will be going down it seems). And he’s way to low rank now to marry Angie.