Not gonna lie, I cringed real hard through out this episode. Out of this season, this episode had to be on the weaker sides, especially when the brought up lovesickness as a plausible concern for one’s health. And while, yes, I did read this part in the manga, but it doesn’t make it any less strange. Though to be fair, I couldn’t tell if the doctor was actively messing with her or not. However, how things played out, if it were an actual health issue, they definitely wouldn’t have skimmed over it for a joke. At least… I hope they wouldn’t.
Alright, Iino has officially gotten on my nerves. She does have room to grow, but how she acted in the first story of this episode was infuriating. Yes, the student council is dysfunctional as heck, however, they still uphold their student council duties very well and they generally contain their chaos within the student council and don’t actively reek havoc out in public… usually. And while I can sort of relate to Iino’s abrasiveness when it comes to rules, people generally do not respond well to others berating them and demanding they change their ways. And I appreciate that Ishigami was trying to help Iino in a way since if she continued cracking down on every little rule break, she was bound to gain a lot of enemies and that these people have feelings. And I just felt so bad for him when Iino basically told him to shut up. Not only that, but Chika basically gives Iino the same exact advice for her to take it immediately. Iino obviously holds Chika on some sort of pedestal and while I get they’re trying to even things out between the group since it’s usually Chika vs the rest of the student council, I’m not really digging the dynamic Iino is bringing in.
However, I will admit there is a lot of room for Iino to grow as a character considering she is the newest member and still needs time to fully integrate into the group. But if she continues this blatant favoritism towards Chika while constantly nitpicking every little thing Kaguya, Shirogane and Ishigami do, it’s going to get old real fast. It’s going to take some time to form a new group dynamic, however, I feel like Iino just isn’t as interesting as a character as the rest. She doesn’t seem to be able to stand on her own as amusing and seems to require the other characters to be doing something in order for her to react. Every character in the group are amusing on their own, but are absolutely hilarious with the others. Unfortunately, Iino is lacking being amusing on her own merits so far. Even Nagisa and Hayasaka are great on their own and are even better when interacting with the others and they’re not even part of the main group. So I do hope that Iino can develop into a more rounded character that can stand on her own and not have to rely solely on reacting to the others. When Chika challenges Iino to not get mad at rules being broken, Ishigami’s extra foot slamming on the table was just hilarious. Just a great example of a character being super amusing on his own without interacting with anyone else, just Ishigami being Ishigami. And then it’s even better when Shirogane just nonchalantly joins in on his shenanigans.
On a completely different note, Ishigami just felt so relatable when his immediate response to Kaguya’s “cute” face was “gross.” While a part of me felt offended by his remark, another part of me laughed because I totally would respond that way as well as I do it all the time to my sister. Freaking Ishigami, I see you have chosen death.
And then we move on to the second short story where I honestly felt like I was dying of cringe from the second hand embarrassment. You could tell they were only acting being freaked out when they found out they were stuck in the equipment shed with each other. I don’t know what it is, but fake acting just fills me with so much cringe, it made it difficult to continue watching. As soon as Kaguya started “crying” I was like: yeah, SOMEONE is definitely playing a game right now… only for them to ACTUALLY be stuck in there for real but these two IDIOTS think the other is going for an obvious ploy. This part legit made me feel uncomfortable for all sorts of reasons. Most of it was from the fake acting, but a part of it came when they SOMEHOW ended up in a situation where Shirogane was on top of Kaguya. Now, normally, this type of situations are doki doki when it’s between my ship, but the fact that Kaguya specifically said that she was afraid, made me a little uncomfortable. Yes, she still let the almost kiss happen (and even instigated it), but when she came away from it crying to Iino that she was scared, was a little offputting. And while there was the possibility of Kaguya putting on an act to get out of the situation, that action still most likely spooked her. Considering how new she is to romance and just being a sweet summer child in that regard, I can understand why that would just be super overwhelming to her. But that didn’t make the moment any less awkward.
And then the last part… I don’t even know what else to say about it. It was just weird with how medical professionals talked about lovesickness like it was a legit health problem. I know this is supposed to be a comedy, but I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief for that. But I will say that Hayasaka was me through out this episode 100%. Despite my mostly negative response for this episode, I can’t say I hated the episode. It was still entertaining and it had me laughing like it usually does, but it’s not my favorite. Hopefully next week’s episode will be more fun considering Kaguya now has a “lovesick” condition.
