We are at the start of a new arc and thankfully Mai hasn’t been tossed aside like a used napkin with events from the previously arc leading to her and the main pretty much establishing a relationship. I say pretty much cause they agreed to go out twice so really it’s just a matter of our main making sure they arc ends with them officially going out. Sadly the topic of this arc being Laplace’s Demon, sadly the story has taken one of the most boring and routine routes of representing it. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a time loop. What could have been a decently original premise is unfortunately ruined by the fact that time loops have become rather common in current anime with me being able to name about five anime with time loops off the top of my head. (Sunday without god, Steins;Gate, Re;Zero, Haruhi and that magical girl anime you all know about.) It’s sad that with all the inventive ways they could have used the concept that this just feels uninspired as well as just not that interesting. The subject this time is that the girl that got her ass kicked somehow resets the day any time this boy confesses to her due to some thing with her friend liking the same guy.
Funny enough the time loop is broken effortlessly much to Sakutos despair as the loop ended in the worst possible way for him so he was counting on redoing it. The bad news is that the girl is pushing Sakuto to pretend to be her boyfriend to fend off the other guy and Sakuto doesn’t really have a choice because otherwise they could get stuck in another time loop. It’s particularly aggravating to have something get in the way of Sakuto and Mai when both are making good progress and here’s this girl barging in trying to steal the main heroine role. The saving grace here is that the character interactions are really fun and I don’t know what changed but the banter works a lot better than the previous arc. I also like that one of the girls I previously thought would be a future harem member for Sakuto actually is in love with Sakuto’s best friend. So I say his friend should just dump the obnoxious girl from the first episode and get together with kinky science girl.
The plot arc is a weak one but i admit to really warming up to the characters with Sakuto proving to still be a pretty fantastic lead. But props to Mai as well when she had a typical misunderstanding moment with walking in on Sakuto at the worst possible moment yet at episodes end she walks straight to his house to get an explanation of the situation. I was thinking there was going to be a long painful stretch with Mai acting cold to him over that so I greatly appreciate the girl cutting though the rom com nonsense and just getting to the heart of the matter.
