What They Say:
Mafuyu is afraid she is just a secondary character while Sugisaki has been assigned to shadow a real secondary character.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Student Council’s Discretion Level 2 took an interesting turn in the last couple of episodes, and that’s saying a lot, with the introduction of Ken’s younger sister Ringo. Her particular style of speech made for some amusement and the whole aspect of her brotherly love made for some grin inducing moments when it came to the other girls on the student council. But because of Ringo’s part in the series, the main girls are all now wondering if they’re being pushed to the side and will become secondary characters as the show goes on. A pointless kind of gimmick to play with, but there is something to say for the way Ken has fun with it, such as the talk about recasting Mafuyu at one point and the way he is just so sharp and biting with her.
Because of the way that Mafuyu is feeling about all of this, she goes big in trying to figure out how to handle the situation and causes plenty of trouble along the way. Amusingly, Ken has to help a real secondary character, Lilicia, and give her ways to become a primary character. But for him, it’s mostly just a matter of messing around with her and getting her into trouble with the situations he puts her in. While we see Lilicia having to go over the top in order to do this, the real fun is in watching just how much of a blast Ken is having in doing this to her. Being “forced” to shadow a secondary character for awhile means he just gets to have a whole lot of fun. Showing her how a primary character like Sakurano acts only adds to the fun since she is so outlandish.
There’s some fun in watching Sakurano as she goes off on a shopping adventure and is all into buying lots of different things and checking them out, though of course she buys precious little. The cuteness comes from the way the shopkeeps are just seemingly against her by telling her the children’s section is elsewhere. You almost have to feel bad for her, but it’s just hilarious seeing her reaction to it all. We do see some good humanizing moments for Sakurano along the way that are definitely helpful, but the more interesting moments, and I use that term very loosely, involves seeing how Ken and Lilicia are handling their time spying on Sakurano, especially when the pair of them end up under a table in very close quarters for awhile.
In Summary:
The series had reached a bit of a high point for me so far with the introduction of Ringo and a better look at his home life, but this episode does do some fun stuff. Seeing Ken screw around with Lilicia definitely made for some good comedy at first while the second half lets a lot of it fall on Sakurano’s shoulders as she gets abused in a number of ways. The silliness at the beginning where some of them are worried about becoming secondary characters has some good chuckles, especially if you’re like me and feel like they’re barely able to be secondary characters with the way the series has been scripted so far. There’s cute moments abound but it’s mostly just because I can’t believe this series is as bland as it is, making some of the weakest moments of comedy seem like very good moments just to have something to latch onto.
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.
