天下制覇

Not being very creative, eh Mr. Director Man?

Impressions:

You were not fooling anything with that start, show. Not a great episode, especially the Satsuki parts. Chisato’s teasing towards the end of the first half was probably the high point, although I really didn’t like the whole "I’ll always be there for you, but this isn’t love," thing or cutting right from chasing after her to post-bath drunk time. There are a number of ways they could go with handling their relationship in that direction and her brother’s death, but they haven’t really set up or done anything along those lines. Without any kind of even flimsy excuse for it given, it just feels incredibly machinated to milk out the maximum melodrama.

On the Satsuki/Hazuki front, Satsuki went past simply flashing him signals, falling back on the bed in invitation, infodumping about her sister issues, etc, to outright trying to kiss him before her sister popped up and spewed all over his face. I’m still having trouble buying romance between them, especially since all he seems to do is stare at her breasts compared to all the little moments between him and Chisato… or even Mifuyu. Hell, even Hazuki has had stronger scenes with him than Satsuki has, and it doesn’t really help that he has absolutely nothing to do with her family issues either and pretty much all of her stuff has just been someone sitting down and spewing out various things about her past in expositional dumps, and in this case, dealt with entirely in one long boring spew without anybody actually doing anything but sitting there and listening. I guess it could be worse. It could be Aomi or Michiru. Hazuki seems to be trying to push him pretty hard to make some kind of decision, which we all know is completely impossible for one of these protagonists.

Preview:

Back to the election.