First Impressions: Seitokai no Ichizon
October 6th, 2009
No plot, lots of references. That’s the short of it. But who needs plot when you have, at my count, 7 references, 8 meta-jokes, and 3 self-depreciations before the OP? The basic setup is the student council meetings each day after school, made up of four girls fitting various anime stereotypes (with some sort of additionally seen before hidden hobby/interest for most of them) and one guy who got in because he’s the valedictorian. It doesn’t seem to have much of a plot or character advancement, though it seems like they have something to (likely weakly) move events along. But I’d probably be content to watch it as long as they keep the references coming.
Characters: Ken, the valedictorian is obsessed with eroge, referring constantly to the student council as his ‘harem’. Mafuyu, the ditsy blond who takes updating game walkthroughs online as Serious Business. Minatsu the twin-tail tsundere older sister of Mafuyu, Chizuru the tall beauty who secretly wants to do “this…and that” with the club president, and club president Kurimu ‘Akachan’, plus Mahiru-sensei give us the cast.
Quick Recap: This first episode starts off before the OP as the council meeting to discuss themselves being made into an anime and how and what they might have to change. Later Ken keeps hitting on all the girls and makes a lot (probably a few too many) eroge/harem jokes, the group discusses how he got into the student council, and then they start working on approving club requests and sorting supplies, making jokes and references all the while. At the end Ken pretends to condense the piles of requests into one form and the girls go home, while later on he does them all himself to make everyone happy and work towards his desired ‘harem end.’
Animation/design: ExecutiveOtaku haet character design! It’s not terrible, exactly, I just hate that style. And those uniforms are just fugly, especially the male version (red/black/pink plaid sort of pattern on long pants?!) That said, I can live with it if the jokes stay good.
Potential: While I enjoyed the first episode, it’s going to take another episode or two to see if they can sustain the in-jokes and references in a decent setting or not. The end of the episode had Ken trying to secretly work for the girls, the council president seeing through it, and it kind of awkwardly implied how ‘caring’ this pervert really is. Please don’t try to have any semblance of drama in this writers, it’s just not made to be serious. Implied feelings on the part of the president towards Ken seems like a less believable version of the Nagi and Hayate relationship.
Bottom Line: While not having much character of its own at the moment, this thing spits out referential humor like bullets from a C-RAM. Will keep watching and hope it doesn’t exhaust itself too quickly. No Lucky Star or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, but good enough to get my interest.
Just for fun, my references, meta-jokes, and self depreciation counts.
References: 30 that I could identify (including: Kuroshitsuji, DBZ, Dragonball Evolution, Lucky Star, Haruhi, Higurashi/Umineko, Kannon, K-ON, Mobile Suit Gundam, Akikan, Tenchi Muyo.)
Meta-jokes: 17
Self-depreciation (”a drama CD would be enough” etc) :6
I found three references, might be more.
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Posted in That Anime Blog