First Impressions / Special A

「祭り･勝負」 (Matsuri / Shoubu)
“Festival / Contest”

With the S.A class and student council planning the reception party for the founding of the school together, Kei finds himself in a less than ideal situation. To make matters worse, Hikari and Hajime seem to be getting along really well, which irritates Kei even more. After an argument about wataame (綿飴) “cotton candy” stands, Hajime challenges Kei to a contest of who can plan a better party.

Kei then walks off, but Hikari goes after him saying she “understands” that he doesn’t like it when she’s talking to the student council president. She then apologizes for not realizing this and says that it would’ve been better if she noticed Kei’s feelings earlier, which results in a very hopeful Kei. Hikari then (incorrectly) suspects that it’s because he doesn’t like having her and Hajime as advisors though, so Kei starts laughing sadistically. In response, Kei just says that if Rank #2 and the “loser dog” (負け犬) think they can beat him together, feel free to try. (This is Kei’s way of taking out his frustration I guess…)

When this news reaches Akira, she tells Kei to bring Hikari back to the S.A group, but he refuses, so she threatens to join the student council group as well. Kei isn’t amused, so he tells Akira to do whatever she wants. Shocked at his response, Akira runs off in tears. After joining up with Hikari’s group, Akira and the others are out promoting their reception party and their “colorful triple wataame”; however, Kei reveals his own public relations campaign, which drastically overshadows the student council’s efforts.

The next day, Kei’s busy working alone and Ryuu notices that he’s not quite like himself. The others then leave for lunch, but tell Kei to ask them for help if he needs it, which reminds Kei of how he has always worked alone. Later that day, Hikari hears from Akira how Kei’s doing all the planning alone and worries about him.

The day after that, Hajime is feeling outclassed, so he decides to destroy some of Kei’s preparations; however, Hikari stops him and recalls that festivals are for everyone to enjoy. She then runs off to find Kei and asks him if he’s having any fun planning this alone or if he’d rather plan this together with her. Touched by her words, Kei decides to do the latter and asks for help from the others, to which they all gladly agree. He also agrees to work with the student council.

With all the preparations done, the reception party starts on a cruise ship, where Hikari asks Kei about the details of what he has planned, but he tells her to just look forward to it. After an extravagant fireworks display, they arrive at an island that’s being developed into a leisure land, but is currently set up as a festival for their party. Amazed at the sight of sudden fireworks, Hikari is taken back, but not before Kei rubs it in her face a bit.

 

Next Episode:
「招待状・雑賀邸」 (Shoutaijou / Saiga Yakushi)
“Written Invitation / Saiga Mansion”

Well, I hoped for more screen time for the supporting cast and they somewhat delivered. This was partially due to the fact that Hikari and Kei were competing in planning the reception party for the founding of the school, meaning that they were apart more than usual. Akira had more screen time, simply because she sided with Hikari and the student council.

I think the best scene this episode was probably near the beginning, when Hikari seemed to notice that Kei was jealous after seeing her and Hajime, the student council president, getting along so well. Hikari was doing an awesome job leading Kei on, but it was pretty clear she still didn’t have the right idea, much to Kei’s disappointment. When listening to Hikari’s words and watching Kei’s anticipation, you could just tell that he was being set up for a nice fall. =) Other than that, I really liked the liberal use of bold lines and SD proportions for comedic scenes, which this episode did a great job of emphasizing. In particular, I couldn’t help but laugh at this shot of Kei.

What I thought to be water fountains from the preview last episode turned out to be fireworks, but regardless, Hikari was quite wowed by what Kei planned. Given all the work he did (which was apparently more for Hikari’s sake than the school’s), it seemed like Kei could’ve said something to Hikari to make her notice his feelings, but as expected, he just irritated her more by rubbing it in. (Ah Kei, you’re not helping the situation either…)

In the next episode, I believe we see the introduction of some characters from another school, mainly because I found out there’s a character named Saiga Yahiro from reading the Japanese S.A Wikipedia page. As it turns out, Yahiro attends Kuroizumi Academy (黒泉学園), which is an interesting contrast to Hakusenkan High School (白選館高校) attended by our S.A class. (In Japanese, kuro (黒) is black, whereas haku/shiro (白) is white.) In any case, I think more characters, especially those from another school, should help stir things up more.

 

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)
– Childhood Kei (幼い彗) / Shimizu Kaori (清水 香里)
– Hikari’s father (光の父) / Imaruoka Atsushi (伊丸岡 篤)
– Takei Hajime (筧 肇) / Fujita Yoshinori (藤田 圭宣)
– Matsumoto (松本) / Matsuo Daisuke (松尾 大亮)
– Female student (女生徒) / Nabei Makiko (鍋井 まき子)

23 Comments

  3. Hahha, just wait for these new characters and we get the zomg love triangle with a dense Hikari. Well the new guy will probably be blunt about liking her and through that (as is always the case), she’ll finally pickup Keis feelings or realize her own. It’s the classic 3rd wheel setup we’ve seen over and over.

    GP
    Reply

  6. @game8910 & Shirley:
    Hmm, I think she looks good in both those shots, hence why I took them. Regardless, I’m happy to see other people took notice as well. =)

    divine
    Reply

  9. @Rauzes:
    Actually, the bottom picture you linked is Tadashi. There was no dialogue in that scene, but I believe he was begging his father mother, the school superintendent, to get approval for their extravagant reception party.

    divine
    Reply

  13. Believe it or not, Show Spoiler ▼

    Basilisk
    Reply

  18. @Takumi

    The least spoilery way to tell you who Yahiro is would happen to be the first image of the three preview images: he’s the boy in the middle in the pale green suit.

    michiko
    Reply

  19. I couldnt help but notice how oddly different Hikari looked in this episode, I think they shortened her bangs in the middle of her face. Kei’s eyes werent little slits like they use to be either. Hmm :/

    Sarukah
    Reply

  20. I’ve been wondering when they were going to introduce Yahiro!! This will hopefully really stir things up as far as the plot goes, at least coming from reading the manga it sure does. There are some other characters that I’d like to see come up from reading the manga, but I don’t know how they’ll handle that.

    Yoko
    Reply

  22. I dont know if ive only just started noticing the quality but it seems to of gone up on this episode…..
    or it could be i watched it in a different format. ive given up trying 2 understand my download program

    SneakyBadger
    Reply

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