The doujins are writing themselves.
Impression
Shouichi really is a pervert. More than I expected, too. I mean, fetishes were always a thing in Amagami, but with Junichi it was always broadly restrained to one fetish per girl (the idea being that, because his personality and ideals change depending on the girl he falls in love with, it would make sense for the sort of stuff he’s into to be different each time as well). With Kaoru there was bellybutton play, and with Haruka for some reason he was captivated with licking the back of her knee. From the first episode of Seiren, I thought Shouichi would be all about asses as far as Hikari is concerned, but today he was additionally aroused by her feet, scent (and being sniffed), bellybutton and the girls’ toilets. That’s a bit… much. Makes Junichi (and me) seem tame in comparison. From a production point of view, all this means is that Seiren is a bit more footloose with this sort of thing than Amagami was. I don’t know whether it’s because it’s not constrained by having to follow a visual novel, because they thought it would sell, or just because they somehow needed people to pay attention to this new set of girls, but… well. How bold of them.
I like Hikari a bit more now. Just a little bit. Shouichi seems like he’s being a good influence on her. They’ve had relatively little alone time given how far along we are in the arc (just the scene in his room at the start and when he said he couldn’t leave her alone and complimented her bellybutton at the end) which is a little concerning, but some Amagami arcs didn’t get round to the confession until the fourth episode, so it’s not a disaster or anything. Usually there’s a conflict of some sort in each arc, and this one looks like it might relate to Hikari’s parents. They sound like they’re kind of overbearing, but equally it could just be Hikari bitching about them for not letting her go on a mixer holiday with a bunch of guys, which given that she’s just a high school student I can understand. By the way, best girl has now become the girl who looks awfully like Keiko (Kaoru’s friend) and is voiced by Kadowaki Mai, who seemed super excited by the thought of Hikari and Shouichi doing lewd things at washing machine-level intensity.
Interestingly enough, Hiyama Miu (with the Kaoru-like hair from the all-girls school) is actually another potential love interest for Shouichi, except she won’t have any chance of being featured this season as her route isn’t one of the three that’ll be animated. Makes you wonder how they’ll all diverge. Going to the summer seminar will take him down Hikari and Miu’s routes, and from there he probably does something to attract the latter’s attention other than giving her the coffee she’s forgotten. Maybe Hikari never shows up at the seminar, possibly prompted by her joining the tutoring sessions with Ikuo (in which case the routes will have diverged as early as back then). If he chose to go back into the arcade with Ikuo in the first episode, he’ll probably meet the gamer girl. He won’t go to the seminar as he’ll never see Hikari at her part-time job and will never be motivated by her. No idea how he’ll get onto the childhood friend route, but presumably that involves not accompanying Ikuo as well.
So which one is lewder, this guy or Tachibana Junichi?
Definitely Shouichi. Junichi’s lewder fetishes were always more tasteful and tended to only appear around halfway into the arc. Shouichi was already perving on Hikari’s butt sweat as early as last week, and there was also that toilet dream scene this episode. Although given that she directly sits on desks without using her skirt it’s not like he’s completely to blame.