Ken’s goal to get into the student council may not be pure, but he has to put in real effort to achieve it.
What They Say:
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The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Originally called Seitokai no Ichizon, Student Council’s Discretion Level 2 originally aired in the fall of 2012 through the Nico Nico Douga site and is now getting a wider distribution through Crunchyroll. The series is animated by AIC and it has a whole lot of history to it as there are seemingly tons of novels, manga and a previous anime season that ran in 2009 from Studio Deen. The light novels by Aoi Sekina kicked the whole thing off in 2008 and had ten novels that ran through 2012, though there are other novels running and several manga series that are ongoing. Suffice to say, it definitely has its fans in Japan and this is our first taste of the property.
The series takes place in the price Hekiyou Academy where we’re introduced to Ken Sugisaki, a pretty decent guy overall from what we see but also someone with some varied interests, going by some of his initial purchases here when it comes to games. He’s trying to find a good dating game in order to help him get along a bit, but he’s also interested in some hentai games, which makes for an amusing discussion when it comes to the student who works there, Minase. She’s not terribly helpful when it comes to his questions about games, but she does try to get him on the right path for a good game involving cute girls, but she tends to be more of a foil to his interest than really helping him. It becomes pretty clear the kind of personality that Ken has going by his reactions here, as he overreacts and is easily frustrated.
Ken’s life isn’t an easy one though as we get a feel for the school as it turns out that the student council is come up with in an interesting way. Most of the slots are done through a popularity contest of sorts which means it definitely has it filled with cute girls who everyone adores. But the final slot is one reserved for the person who scores the best on a certain series of exams. They want to at least have one smart person on there in case the popular ones aren’t all that swift. And it’s something that Ken wants in order to have a good high school life since he can see it as a path to a lot of fun and time with a bunch of very cute girls. While he’s managed to make some friends in his class, he’s looking for that bigger angle out there.
The first half spends a lot of time giving us some banter between Ken and Minase, since he’s trying for that special slot and she’s making it clear that she’s the smartest person in the school. It’s amusing as they go through the list when the results are posted and she gets the top spot while he believes he’s not even in the top ten. But they take the fun approach of both of them scoring the first spot in a tie, a perfect tie no less, which complicates the student council aspect a bit. We only get a slim look at the student council itself, but the setup here gives us a lot of time with just Ken and that helps to cement the character since it’s just him playing off of Minase rather than playing off of multiple girls. The touches are there, as we see these other elements though, and with Ken it’s all done through a bit of a gaming style as he views it all has a harem route in a game to survive.
In Summary:
With the opening episode essentially being a recap of what happened before, we get a good look at the basis of the series rather than just throwing us hard into things. I actually like Ken a bit since he has an amusing view of the world that’s kind of playful but we also see that he’s put in a lot of hard work in order to get where he is. The show spends its time with those two well but the last couple of minutes are cute as it shifts to the second season with everyone being somewhat self aware of what just went on, noting the change in animation and character design style, and putting us all together for the new path. It doesn’t do much for making the girls of the council accessible, but that’s what the rest of the season is for. I can see trying this out for another episode or two to see what the show is really like, but this was a decent way of recapping what came before for those like me who haven’t seen any of it.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.