A chronology of events from class-D where nothing seems to happen, but there’s a seed of doubt buried down underneath and now waiting for its chance to crawl out of the surface? It sounds so thought-provoking like a Michael Haneke’s film if I put it that way, except in this show, all the build-up is for… a freaking stolen underwear? Really? Look, disregard the fact that they wasted 4 whole days for almost nothing (what happen to the finding and securing spots part? Now you don’t even follow your own rules Youkoso?), if the show wants to raise conflicts within the group, they could address many other issues that are way stronger than this pinky panty incident. How about someone question Hirata’s leader ability? How about someone challenges the roles assigned for the members of the class? How about the girls accused the boys for being sexist (still even better than we end up with)?
To rub more salt in the wound, the way Youkoso executes that part, from Ike clumsily passes it down to Ayanokouji, to the search the bags and bodies afterwards to the way the girls behave in general is just plain dull and tedious. Ike and Ayanokouji, how about you guys just throw it away into any nearby bush tree? No hard evidence, not guilty as charged; right? What even worse is that this conflict is never properly planted before. Except from the brief part where the class argued about the need of buying a portable toilet last week, the show has been setting up this arc as a battle between each class, so even if Ayanokouji find the true culprit, how this have anything to do with using points, survival game, and conflicts with other classes? I do have my own theory down below but there’s no denying that this development is just too silly and dumb. The way Hirata goes all his way to protect Ayanokouji has an uncanny effect to me. He does it for the sake of his class, granted, but he’s just way too nice for his own good here.
On day 2, our main lead Ayanokouji and Horikita go out their way to scout other classes, and “happen” to meet all the important figures in each class and how the other classes approach to this survival game. Class-B is all about harmony, Class-A has a military-like discipline and class-C just rejects this game completely. Using all their points on the first day, class-C truly has nothing else to lose. A destructive strategy, but by all mean not a bad one at all. I still believe Ryuen (from now on I will refer him as Nerriot Sparkling guy) has something sinister up his sleeves; like the way class-C’ “deserters” keep popping up in both Class-D and Class-B. So, my most educated guess for now is that Class-C is far from out of the game. They use moles to find each class’s proxy leaders, making the class fight against each other (that underwear incident). Ibuki might hate this plan but for her sake she had to do it, and she might hate class-D even more for falling into this trap so easily. If that is the case, I fully expect she would open up a bit when Ayanokouji finally confronts her.
Lastly, about the possibilities of the proxy leaders of each class. I would love to be proven wrong but Youkoso doesn’t ever try to include that many class members except for the important ones. Class-A has Katsuragi and that green hair guy, class-B has Ichinose and the guy Kanzaki and class-C of course no one would defy that Neriot Sparkling dude. The only one person who doesn’t participate is confirmed to be Sakayanagi and it’s interesting to learn that she and Katsuragi never see eyes to eyes in how they approach things. Don’t know how this reveal will affect future plot but for now, we need to settle down on who was stealing that pinky panty first. Such a sophisticated turn of event that I can’t help but admire with my rolling eyes.
Agree that I was absolutely rolling my eyes at the melodrama surrounding this panty theft incident. For all the commotion made by Ike while he was in line pawning responsibility off to Ayanokouji, they could’ve thrown them behind a bush with much more subtlety. It’s not like you can lift fingerprints off them (also bothers me about Kushida’s blackmail method earlier in the series … is she just going to never was that jacket? Does she have a tag on it in her closet saying, “Ayanokouji blackmail jacket” so she knows which one it is? Would a victim ever do such a thing?) And why is Hirata keeping them? Yeah they might be his girlfriend’s and the girls trust him the most, but why risk anything when burying them would solve the problem in 15 seconds? And would a gender fracture in the class really be so catastrophic at this point? Both genders seem perfectly capable of surviving even if they completely ignored each other. That’s Nerriot Sparkling’s grand scheme? Underwear theft? He physically beat one of his own people for that? It was hard to see what the panty thief was doing, but initially I saw what looked like a card and a strap of sorts, so I was more afraid that he/she (and let’s be honest – 99% chance that it was Ibuki) had found the keycard with Horikita’s name on it, especially with the reveal during the eyecatch that *classes whose leaders are guessed correctly are penalized 50 points*. I swear I would’ve noticed if that rule had been mentioned prior. It changes the entire game. I was actually biting my nails for a few minutes there thinking, “oh shit they should’ve had a lookout stay up to watch the campsite activity” (and I still think that they should) because of the dire consequences that the keycard theft would have, only to find out that what was stolen was … a pair of underwear. I thought we’d wake up on day 3 to find Horikita freaking out about missing her keycard, meaning they couldn’t even renew their current location and would be forced to uproot completely as well as C-class and the complicit A-class knowing who the leader truly was, robbing them of 100 bonus points and their ability to earn any more. The best part about this episode is Ayanokouji’s dry internal monologuing , “damnit Ike don’t give them to me… oh this is awkward… hmm… oh well whatever I’ll just Hail Mary and tell the truth.” Maybe Horikita would vouch for him because he obviously proved that he’s not a pervy dickhole when he had her disable the cameras in the locker room (although that hasn’t happened yet in the novels..but they’re not doing a perfect adaptation so whatever). Ayanokouji’s a great Kyon clone in many ways, and I wish the anime would capitalize on his snarky 1st person perspective as much as the novels do, as it’s one of the reasons I thought Haruhi was good. The girls’ reason why Ibuki couldn’t have done it, “oh a girl would never do that.” Why? A girl is the most likely suspect because a guy would look suspicious being in the girls’ tent at any time.
Regarding leaders, we know Ayanokouji probably already suspects that Katsuragi isn’t class A’s leader, but for all the scouting done this episode we didn’t learn any more about who the leaders might be. Presumably B and C-class are smart enough not to pick Ichinose and Ryuen. At least Sakura got some screen time, and she makes a good scouting partner because she doesn’t pick a fight with every-damn-body like main girl ‘Kita does.
Ryuen’s zero-point strategy might be the best one we’ve seen yet. I mean even a perfect 450+ points probably wouldn’t propel D-class past C-class (although the extra money is certainly desirable), and since that’s practically impossible to achieve his argument about living in discomfort for nothing holds water.
Since they spent a half of an episode on it I’d at least like to know about the port-o-john and how they’re spending/earning their points. It’s a better reason for a gender fracture than presumed underwear theft, in my opinion. Like you said, what about capturing spots? How many spots are there anyway? Like give me a ballpark amount, at least. 10? 100? If there are 100 it’s a very viable way to earn points; if there are 10 it may not be worth it.
Very frustrating show after a week of waiting. I’m really glad I found Made in Abyss because it’s the only thing really keeping me interested in keeping up with this season. Kakegurai is alright, too, but for different reasons.
Why Hirata keeping them? That’s a good question. Maybe for his own fetish desire or maybe he would just put it bag to her bag like nothing ever happened. I believe beating up his classmate is one of Nerriot Sparkling’s hobbies, not necessary because of this grand scheme. Speaking of his choice of drink, from what I heard apparently in the novel he was drinking some kind of alcohol, but since you can’t show an underage kid drinking booze, Lerche changed it to sparkling water instead. Still put a smile on my face how the Nerriot Sparkling totally match his goofy personality. -You’re suck! I will beat you to death! (then sips a Sparkling water in a freaking bar. Awesome)
I totally forgot to mention that added rules. And mind you, not only they lose 50 points a a penalty, they lose all the BONUS POINTS gained during the test? What???? So suddenly, guessing the right leaders become the top priority. It would’ve been much much better if they steal Hirokita’s key card. Like you said it will put class-D into a dire situation and Ayanokouji solve it will be rewarding. Finding a panty thief? Not so much. In any case, they should’ve a night guard but it’s class-D we are talking about.
Funny I was thinking about this Kyon-clone right before you mentioned it too (and he wasn’t the original 1st person protagonist with snarky comments but he sure popularize that role.). The thing is, apart from maybe Hachiman from Oregairu, no one can beat Kyon for what Kyon does best. Yeah, this season is quite low on good shows, but that’s a very good excuse to watch some old shows and catch up with your backlog. For this season, I’d recommend giving Princess Principal a chance and this is just me but I find Gamers very hilarious. It says something when you have to draw a diagram just to keep up with all the misunderstanding relationships.