Essentially first aid.
Drama and developments. Awesome.
I really do love how Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate handles its drama. It’s not ridiculously melodramatic; the friends are understanding when misunderstandings occur; a typical harem would take the route of cheap screams, and professions of hate. The show really is transforming into quite another show if that makes sense; the previous episodes primarily focused on the election at hand, but this episode was centered, and focused almost entirely on character interactions. These were the type of episodes I wanted, the type of episodes that I really anticipated. I’m the guy that could analyze any show, but I really do prefer to stick with characters, they’re the most enjoyable type of analysis.
Oojima’s heroine is still a bit shaky at the moment. Chisato would be the blatant, obvious choice; they’re childhood friends, there’s a mutual interest [he got excited in the onsen], and they share a “dark” secret from the past. Given the variables, she is most likely to win. But there’s almost this invisible force that holds Oojima back from pursuing her; it’s could be because he’s “unsure” on his love for her [since everybody around him encourages to go for her, he’s not sure if he actually loves her], or it could be related to some other, unrevealed variable. The small boy in particular is still relatively enigmatic, the incident could have occurred when they were kids [making the death of the boy the loss of a childhood friend], or it could have occurred at a later date [the boy could have been a variable that brought them together].
Essentially a heroine too.
Shinoname is also an extremely interesting character. Her actions with Oojima appear to be minimal; she probably gets the “lowest” amount of interaction with him; but, she probably gets the most meaningful interaction. They talk to each other on a familiar, personal level; there’s not a passive jocular bickering between the two, it’s more so serious talk. Serious talk in the long run develops and builds a relationship. Her feelings towards him also appear to be enigmatic as well. She could be going for him because she genuinely likes him [her face was of genuine hurt when he found out that he kissed her]; or her feelings may be empowered by an underlining, darker reason. She could hold malice towards her sister, so she could be wanting to go for him to screw with her; this would be a logical development, and I’d be surprised if the anime actually pulled it off, but it’s a bit out there. But if we do connect the dots, she’s characterized as asserting that she keeps “work” and her private life separate, yet, she’s so heavily affected by her sister’s actions, which makes it remarkably difficult for that statement to be true [albeit not impossible].
Attractiveness grew exponentially.
But in all honesty, I don’t mind who wins the romance [unless it’s some random, obscure character; but chances are, this won’t occur]. I really like all of the characters, it’s just the rebound of the victory that I’m dreading. If one heroine win, then the other heroines lose; it’s the shitty portion of visual novel adaptations. In a visual novel, the romance is linear because you choose the heroine; the other heroines do not all fall for you, you simply choose the route of one heroine, and if you so desire, choose an alternate route in an alternate dimension if you seek another heroine. A singular heroine makes choice much simpler; there’s not the variable of how the others will take it, and whether what you’re doing is the “right” choice; in this sense, many series end up with harem endings. But what most harem ending series fail to realize is that the fans don’t want a “happy” ending; they want closure [which is typically happy]. A harem ending is a bullshit excuse for an ending, if you develop all the characters, then you end the series with a meaningful romance, not with a “everybody’s happy” type of ending.
Concluding Thoughts
I’d really love to anticipate the next few episodes as being as “dramatic” and “developing” as this one; but chances are, they’ll be election-related episodes. By no means is that a bad thing, it’s just that I enjoy pure character interaction much much more. You learn a lot about the characters when there’s not the usual bickering mood. When characters are surrounded by other characters, they act differently; but if we break down the interaction to a heroine and a protagonist, then shit tends to be a more “honest” and more “coherent”; there’s no ambiguous swings or maybe’s; it’s typically flagrant and direct. Oh well, I can hope though.
Enjoyable episode, probably one of the most for me. I hope for the rest of the episodes to be similar to this.
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I also like character development over the election episodes (tho the election episodes aren’t badly done, the comedy is mixed in well also like with the speech) and the cast of characters are all fairly likeable, but i wonder if its weird that i don’t want Chisato to win, it would feel to cliche i guess, that and the childhood friend feels overplayed, and while its just theory of course since not enough is revealed yet, it seems Yuuki may feel obligated to some degree over what ever happened in the past, after all guilt can sway people even if they are not in the wrong, guilt still manages to find its form in one way or another. In any case great episode, this series has been getting better as it has gone along, now while i doubt it will ever touch Kokoro Connect in terms of drama, if it develops the plot nicely over the next few episodes while expanding character development i can see this being a series that others will look back upon as enjoyable.
Yeah, Chisato would be a blatant win, but there may be an enigmatic twist that justifies it. And yeah, Kokoro Connect is on a different tier of its own.