Aw man, I am dreading the idea that this series is only going to be thirteen episodes… This episode’s pacing was terrible! It was rushing along everything so fast that it was difficult to keep track of things. To make things worse, the animation was just bad, like- lazy lazy lazy, or they decided that it wasn’t worth to put the budget into it precisely because it was so rushed. I honestly had hoped this show was going to be twenty-four episodes, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be that way…
By literally dumping all the last minute stuff that was supposed to happen before the major part of the tournament, it was not only overwhelming, but just plain messy. There were a lot of things I would have liked to have seen develop more thoroughly such as the friendship between Seiso Academy’s Ensemble and Shiseikan Academy’s Ensemble (who are actually Hihara’s students!) since Hihara had requested Headmaster Akihiko of Seiso Academy if his students could stay at Seiso Academy’s Liden Hall for the time being. Shiseikan’s Ensemble includes only five members (that’s it, that’s the club), Mizushima Arata (Haruto’s cousin) who is full of beans, Yagisawa Yukihiro, Hodzumi Shirou (who has a tough appearance, but is in reality a considerate sweetheart), and another two characters (who are pretty much irrelevant besides the fact they play the Tuba and the French Horn). Then there was also the prelude aspect to the competition that involves the preparation, which they had decided to skim over entirely, including the preliminary’s first, second and third stage of the National Student Music Competition Ensembles. Now we are fully jumping into the heart of the competition and Seiso’s first opponent is Shiseikan Academy.
Amidst the rush, we basically only learned a tiny bit about two characters: first Housei, a violinist from Jinnan High School who has poor health. He and Daichi are friends and also rivals. Then it carried over to Daichi where we learned that he wasn’t always a violinist and has the least amount of experience of the entire ensemble, which is why Chiaki called him the weakest link. Daichi and Ritsu met during the entrance exams for Seiso Academy, Ritsu with his ambitious goals of wanting to be a professional musician and be part of Seiso Academy’s orchestra club, and Daichi who was applying as a regular student, blurted out that he would like to join the orchestra club too. They have been friends ever since and it is also the reason why he had decided to attend Seiso Academy other than it being close to home. This also explains a lot why he knows what condition Ritsu is in, and I am sure he had asked his father about it and given Ritsu some pieces of advice, which I am sure Ritsu had chosen to ignore.
Chiaki was a bit of a troublemaker today, deliberately putting Kanade on the spot when he realized that she was selected to be part of Ritsu’s Ensemble. He was not impressed and criticized her performance, telling her that it lacked splendor and that she’s a disappointment. And if that wasn’t enough, he struck a nerve claiming that mediocrity will be her limit.
There was a quick encounter with the fancy pink haired girl whom we saw behind the scene at Amane Academy, who I am quite convinced is Reiji’s sister. Her encounter with Kanade was brief, but I get the feeling that if she is his sister, she probably has some sort of idea why he doesn’t like Kanade.
PREVIEW
