What? Two School Days episodes two days in a row! Indeed that is the case as I finally catch up in this series.
It’s Episode 8, and now that Kotonoha has revealed to Sekai via a nice hard slap that she’s aware of what Makoto and Sekai are up to, what will Sekai do in response? Plus, Setsuna finally finds out that Makoto never actually broke things off with Kotonoha and decides to take things in her own hands. We also discover that Makoto and Setsuna have some history between them, as well as what’s up with Setsuna’s empty room. Meanwhile, the first day of the school festival comes around and…and…and Setsuna did WHAT!?
A lot of stuff happens, so it’s a rather lengthy writeup today, so just hang with it.
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This episode starts with Sekai sitting in a playground at night, telling Setsuna that she thinks that things have gone too far between her and Makoto. Setsuna says she thought she was Makoto’s boyfriend, but Sekai tells her that he never actually broke up with Kotonoha. Setsuna decides that she’ll force Makoto to decide who he wants to be with.
The next day, Sekai doesn’t come to class and thinks about what happened the previous night in her room: After Kotonoha slapped Sekai, Kotonoha chides her for getting with Makoto, even though she knew he was dating Kotonoha and even after helping them gets together, and begs her to never see Makoto again. Meanwhile, at school, after that day’s committee meeting, Kotonoha wants Makoto to ride the train with her, but Setsuna insists that they’ll be too busy getting ready for the festival, and that he’ll be too late to meet her. Despite Makoto’s attempts to resist, Kotonoha finally relents.
In the classroom, Makoto chides Setsuna for being too hard on Kotonoha, but Setsuna just asks him whether he’s going out with Sekai or not. Makoto tries to tell her that it’s none of her business, but Setsuna just tells him that it is because she’s Sekai’s friend. Then Setsuna gets right to the point and asks Makoto which girl he loves. Makoto has trouble answering, saying that he liked Kotonoha at first, but that he’s more at ease with Sekai. Setsuna asks if that means that it’s just more convenient to him to be with her, but he denies it, saying that he meant he feels calm and secure around Sekai. Setsuna seems satisfied that this answer means that he chooses Sekai and tells Makoto to go see Sekai, and that she’ll finish the work at school herself.
Once at Sekai’s house, Makoto asks why she wasn’t at school, and she tells him that she felt sick. She then tells him that when she left his apartment the night before, she ran into Kotonoha and then tells him that Kotonoha knows about them and asks Makoto what they should do, saying that how they’re going about things is all wrong. That night Setsuna visits Sekai and asks if Makoto will break things off with Kotonoha, and Sekai tells her that he will.
The next day, on the day home from class, Kotonoha is able to catch Makoto on the train. She all but tells Makoto that she’ll let him sleep with her, and asks him to dance with her during the festival’s folk dance. Tempted by the fact that he’ll finally be able to score with Kotonoha and her ample breasts, he agrees to. Once he gets off the train, Makoto sighs and mumbles to himself that he’s “the worst.” Meanwhile, Setsuna returns to her apartment, and asks a woman on the phone for an aparmtne in French. Upon hanging up, Setsuna walks over to a pile of stuff and looks down onto a French travel guide and her passport.
We then get to the school festival. Class 3, which is Makoto and Sekai’s class is doing a cafe with sexy waitresses and supposedly cute pink girl mascot…things. Meanwhile, their rivals are class 1, doing a little-sister cafe, class 2 doing a zombie cafe, and class 4, Kotonoha’s and Otome’s class, is doing a haunted house. We finally confirm one purpose of the lounge that Otome and her friends have created: it’s basically being used as a sex room.
The battle between classes 1, 2, and 3 becomes heated and they all bring out legions of sexy waitresses, cute mascots, “little-sisters,” and zombies, finally causing mass havoc and destruction class 3’s cafe. One of Sekai’s friends wonders if they can continue the cafe the next day, but Setsuna says that she’ll fix the damage that night. Everyone decides to pitch in, but Setsuna and Makoto have to go out to find supplies.
While they’re walking back to the school with the materials, Setsuna reveals to Makoto that she’s moving away to France once the festival is over because her mother is being transfered. However, Setsuna says that she’s worried about Sekai. She tells Makoto that before they became friends, whenever Sekai was done, she would just brood over things alone in her room, but once she became friends, Sekai was able to get things off her chest by talking to her. Setsuna tells Makoto that she wants him there in her place once she leaves. Makoto asks Setsuna if she’s told Sekai that she’s leaving, but Setsuna just tells him that she’ll tell Seaki when she has the chance to.
Setsuna then remembers a time back during the entrance ceremony when she was being teased by some boys, and Makoto came to rescue her. Setsuna starts crying and Makoto tries to comfort her, but she rebuffs him, telling him that she doesn’t want to rely on anyone else. Makoto tells her that he admires her strength and suggests that she become the class representative.
Back at school (and the present), the class has finished making all the repairs, and Makoto and Setsuna are the only ones left in their classroom, with Makoto out cold sleeping against the wall. Setsuna mumbles to herself that she’ll make a memory “just for herself” and leans over and kisses Makoto while he’s asleep. However, in the middle of her kiss, Kotonoha walks into the room while looking for Makoto…
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If you thought last episode’s cliffhanger was a big one, this week is, if possible, even bigger. First off, Kotonoha’s interactions with Setsuna have almost entirely consisted of Setsuna keeping Makoto away from her, so Kotonoha can’t have a favorable opinion of Setsuna in the first place. Second, even though Setsuna clearly isn’t competing for Makoto, she’s caught stealing a kiss from him, something which she won’t exactly be able to explain away all that easily. Of course Setsuna thinks she’s stealing it from Sekai and not Kotonoha.
The scene from the entrance ceremony has already served one purpose, in showing the root source of Setsuna’s affection towards Makoto. However, it also shows that Setsuna can be rather fragile despite the tough face she puts up. If Kotonoha gets aggressive with Setsuna, will we see that Setsuna has grown and can stand up to her, or will she break down like she did when she got teased? If she can stand up to Kotonoha, she may be the best hope yet of giving Kotonoha the bad news that Makoto has chosen Sekai.
Of course, I found it interesting that Makoto is the motivating factor behind Setsuna becoming class representative, and I had come to believe that she was more interested in Sekai than Makoto (and maybe she is, overall). I thought Makoto seemed friendlier towards Setsuna in this episode than past ones. Of course, he hasn’t had a lot of interaction with Setsuna in past episodes either, outside of the last episode.
Getting back to the matter at hand, the other factor in all this is Makoto, who is currently asleep. If he wakes up in the middle of a fight between Setsuna and Kotonoha, it’s quite possible that he’ll take Kotonoha’s side, given that he already feels that Setsuna has been too rough on her.
The next episode should also (finally) include the festival dance, so will Makoto really go through with dancing with Kotonoha instead of Sekai? If so, will the next episode finally be the one where he sleeps with Kotonoha? Also, Setsuna still has to tell Sekai that she’s leaving, which may be a critical blow for Sekai, if she has already has to go through a blow of Makoto dancing with Kotonoha instead of her.
Also, we’ve seen more and more just how fragile and unsure Sekai really is, despite her apperance at the start of the series, and the fact that can’t handle things emotionally very well, and she may be prone to snapping given a double dose of bad news. Of course, Kotonoha is getting increasingly desperate to keep Makoto by her side, and is raising the stakes for herself seemingly in leaps and bounds.
Of course, all this is leading towards someone getting hurt, though not necessarily Makoto. I originally thought in the last episode, and even through some of this episode that Setsuna may actually be the first person to kick Makoto’s ass, but given that she’ll be leaving for France soon, that seems less of a possibility now.
If there is one glimmer of hope, Makoto does at least seem to realize that he’s a jackass, and as they say, the first step in recovery is admitting that you have a problem. We’ll just have to see if Makoto actually tries to resolve the situation in a manner that won’t ultimately cause bloodshed or worse.
As for the festival scenes themselves, I thought they were pretty funny, though ultimately not very relevant to the storyline. Having the battle music while Setsuna directs legions of sexy waitresses and cute mascots was hilarious though, on top of the Mark II costume that she wore, with mechanical battle sound effects and all. However, while funny, I’m glad it only took a few minutes of the episode, and acted as a nice comedic relief between pretty heavy segments.
