Seijo no Maryoku wa Bannou desu – Episode 2

This week Sei’s 50% Bonus strikes again when she dives into cooking and making cosmetics for skincare!

Thanks to her super effective potions helping out the Third Order’s Knights, the Research Institute secured a contract to regularly sell her surplus of potions to the knights. This is a big deal considering her potions cannot be distributed and sold to the public. As part of her reward for her contribution, Sei is given the opportunity to have a request fulfilled, and so she asks for a kitchen to cook in.

In this world, or at least in this Kingdom, Medical Herbs have always been used for well, medicine aka Potions. Since Sei absolutely hates how the food tastes, she wanted to be able to make her own food and decided to add the medical herbs to her dish give it that missing flavor. Understandably, as soon as people got the chance to taste it, their minds were blown and Johan begged her to share the recipes with the Institute’s cooks.

However neither she or anyone else realized cooking with medical herbs offers stats boost until she goes out on a joint-expedition with the Third Order to gather herbs from the Southern Forest. That day, Sei had been the one to prepare lunch and sure enough, Johan later receives a report how everyone’s physical abilities got a huge boost. So for the sake of keeping her ability under wraps as much as possible, he advised her against cooking in public. Which makes sense if she doesn’t want to draw unwanted attention to herself since she’s pretty satisfied as she is right now.

We also saw the effect come into play with the cosmetics she has made for herself. Her eye-cream has improved her eye-sight and now she doesn’t need to use her glasses anymore (man that would be a wonderful thing to have). Sei’s skincare came into play when she helped out Elizabeth’s friend Nicole treat her acne problem. Thanks to the treatment she made for her, the word has gone around and everyone wants to find out where she bought it from (they made sure it has not been revealed that Sei made it because of the bonus). But that’s precisely why Johan warned her not to cook in public, because people would quickly notice her dishes are more effective than the standard.

But considering how everything she crafts gets that boost, I suppose you could say the 50% Bonus is a passive blessing effect of sorts.

In other news, we were introduced and learn a bit more about a couple of characters.

Compared to last week, this time we got to see a bit more of Johan’s character. He has a cute and playful side and is always looking forward to trying out new food. He was especially excited to taste Sei’s cooking. But we also got to see how he looks out for her, as he recognizes her ability will draw unwanted attention to herself and it will become a nuisance.

We were also introduced to Elizabeth Ashley, a young noble lady who Sei met in the Royal Library. It is a bit unfortunate that they ended up cutting out a bit of their conversations when they first became friends, but I don’t consider it that big of a deal since it won’t affect the plot. It’s really just a little treat that some may have liked to see because Elizabeth is one of Sei’s first girl friends in this world. We did get to see her tease Sei about rumors circulating between her and a certain handsome Captain, ohohoho~

Which leads us to Captain Albert Hawke, who was saved by Sei’s high-grade potion saved at the end of the previous episode. It’s kind of funny, because instead of learning about his character, we only really got to see that this man is absolutely smitten with Sei, which was absolutely adorable.

So say hello to my OTP! I seriously can’t get over his little blush. I love how obvious he is about it that Johan can’t help but tease him (which is always fun to see ohoho~). You may as well say it’s love at first sight because this guy is not wasting any time when it comes to getting to know Sei. He is refreshingly proactive, and not to mention super smooth about it too. But one of my favourite thing about them is how they are getting to know each other in such an ordinary and realistic way. Simple things of just talking about interests and how their day gone often gets completely ignored due to various circumstances, more often than not, drama. It also helps they are super cute together, so I am very much looking forward to the next episode, fufu~! Heck, I want to gush about them some more, but I’ll save that for next week! I love them so much!

This is one of the few occasions where I appreciate how early on a love story begins. Sometimes it can be fun to see the relationship grow right from the start!

That said, I would be lying if I wasn’t a bit nervous about how it will be executed in the adaption. In the novel, the growth of their relationship is slow but not to the point they are dragging their feet. So I consider it one of the good slow-burn romance. For that reason, I just hope this adaption doesn’t gloss over important moments of their growth because I am afraid that will inadvertently cause it to feel rushed.

Now the reason why I raise that concern is because it looks like we might see the pace pick up sooner than later. The OP Theme indicates we may actually be seeing them adapt up to potentially Volume 4. (I would say Vol 4 because the 3 and 4 needs to be together). This is what I have thought they would do in the first place, and this episode pretty much matches my estimates for when I am anticipating certain things to happen. But while I really want to see Vol 3 and 4 be adapted, I also came to realize it might not necessarily be the best idea since it makes me a bit nervous of how many corners they might cut to squeeze it in. But it is also precisely because this series is so simple that it may actually work out. Thanks to that, it may offer enough wiggle-room for them to cut/speed up parts without sacrificing the more important development related to the plot and relationship growth.

Overall all, this was another slow and fairly “quiet” episode, but as I have said before, the charm of this story lies in its simplicity, making it a relaxing experience. So if you’re looking for drama, you’re definitely not going to find it here.

But the biggest improvement from last week was how we finally got to Sei’s personality shine through. I really enjoyed seeing her flustered and hearing more of her internal thoughts. They could probably do it a bit more because there are at times when the episode feels too quiet. I also appreciated how they continued to pay attention to the small details, such as explaining how Sei (and Aira) are literate in the Kingdom’s Language. We see how the Classical Salutanian is translated into Japanese, so this shows that it was part of the affect of having been summoned into this world. Little details like that goes a long way, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they will cleverly implement some more stuff (such as perhaps, the magic stats, which has yet to be mentioned).

Next week is the fun episode for me so I’m really~ looking forward to it!