Professor Gandalf says: YOU SHALL NOT PASS!…if you don’t study.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Midterms are right around the corner, with any score below a 30 counting as a failing grade. Hang, just more than 30 is enough to pass?! I’d be acing my classes if that were the case! Anyway, this means it’s time once again for Futaro to whip the girls into studying mode. The study group seems to at least be improving now that Ichika’s officially joined, but Nino still evades Futaro’s pleas, and a rather blunt argument with Itsuki ends up pushing her away too. But if things didn’t seem dire enough, the Nakano patriarch gives him an ultimatum: if even one of the girls gets a failing grade on the midterms, Futaro will be forced to resign as their tutor. He decides to keep this deal from them, though Nino manages to wring it out of him and begins her plot to fail so he can be fired.

Though Ichika, now actually invested in studying because of her new feelings for Futaro, convinces everyone to let him stay the night so they can study more. As that gets underway, Ichika also starts pulling strings so Miku can start making moves on him, even though she can’t help but feel twinges of attraction towards him too. She, Miku, and Yotsuba also ask what kind of girls he’s into, so he uses the answer as a reward for more studying…even though it turns out to just be descriptions of his sister (hopefully jokingly, but you never know with anime these days).

Futaro ends up staying in Miku’s bed while she sleeps with Ichika, but a late night trip to the bathroom leads her to wander back to her room, leading to Futaro waking up with Miku lying next to him!

OUR TAKE

This is the first half of an arc, so the most I can really comment on here is character progression. Obviously there isn’t any chance of Futaro being fired only halfway through the first season, so that deflates the tension a significant amount, but then again, what’s important about that is more about it forces the characters to change, regardless of whether or not it actually has a chance of impacting them. In this case, it makes Futaro double his efforts to help the girls (who are willing) to study more, but that desperation also accidentally causes some conflict between him and Itsuki. The argument is probably what I’d call the development highlight of the episode, mainly in how it shows the two of them accidentally exacerbating the worse parts of the others’ personalities despite them both wanting essentially the same thing. It’s complex and organic and I dig that.

Though this wouldn’t be a harem story without some harem shenanigans, which this episode is definitely layered with in the back half. There’s the girls trying to guess Futaro’s tastes, Ichika playing matchmaker despite her own secret intentions, and Miku wandering back into her bedroom to freak him out in the morning, which only adds to the drama and misunderstandings. Although the distance of Itsuki at the moment (and, as I think I’ve mentioned already, her placement in the marketing) still gives me a vibe that the First Girl Wins trope (wherein the first girl introduced in the story ends up with the protagonist). Itsuki WAS the first of the five to meet Futaro, so I have a feeling she’ll be the last to come around to him, since this initial challenge puts her out of the immediate attention of the reader, meaning her eventual falling for him will be more of a surprise. I’m still Team Ichika, but that’s what the anime tea leaves are telling me.

But there was a bit of a hiccup this time. Something that I’m usually blind to, so if I noticed it, it must be pretty sloppy. And that’s the animation, particularly in how off-model many of the characters looked from time to time. I have a feeling part of that was replicating specific manga panels from the source material, but it still got distracting at times. I usually only pay attention to the story, so if this stuck out to me, you know there’s a problem. Yet still, another fine episode of the show. Sad to know that we’re already half way through, but at least that means there’s another half ahead!

Score 7/10