3 Episode Taste Test: Seitokai no Ichizon (The Student Council’s Discretion)

Two minutes and twenty seconds from the start of the first epis­ode until the chir­rupy open­ing and nearly fif­teen ref­er­ences to other anime are made, an aver­age of one every ten seconds. Breath­less to the point of near schizo­phrenia, the intro­duc­tion to Sei­tokai no Ichizon crams in ref­er­ences to pop­u­lar web­sites, itself, fan­dom, and is almost dis­par­aging of its own exist­ence. Hit­ting the ground with wheels spin­ning the first epis­ode is rauc­ous and laugh-out-loud hil­ari­ous to the point where one’s jaw aches and mind reels with the bar­rage of anime cul­ture ref­er­ences. That it slows down in the suc­ceed­ing two epis­odes is a bless­ing although the threat of stag­na­tion looms large.

“This is poignancy by con­trast as is so often the case with comedies”

The Hekiyou School Coun­cil mem­bers are draf­ted in based on pop­ular­ity which means the dens­ity of “cute” girls is high and the pres­ence of a male all the more shock­ing — Sugi­saki saw an oppor­tun­ity to go for a harem end­ing (his words) and dragged his test scores from last to first in order to get an assured seat. The res­ult is a chaotic group that takes pleas­ure in the act of doing very little while trad­ing barbs and suc­cumb­ing to their own vices. From the dimin­ut­ive coun­cil leader, Sak­ur­ano, with a pen­chant for rabbit-shaped sweets to the icy cold Akaba with untold men­tal powers it’s an oddball group who’s chem­istry tends to sim­mer rather than pop.

Sugi­saki is undoubtedly the star, start­ing with innoc­u­ous gibes at the pres­id­ent to his con­stant insist­ence that the coun­cil is his per­sonal cadre of ladies. It’s a smart move to make while the other, more long-term char­ac­ters warm up and being to play off one another. His antics do begin to grate with a strong push to paint him as a kind of mar­tyr fig­ure: eager to please those around him des­pite their rejec­tions and sup­posedly wise bey­ond his years. This is poignancy by con­trast as is so often the case with com­ed­ies, the sombre moments res­on­ate all the stronger when jux­ta­posed against irrev­er­ence; how­ever these insights fall short of any real depth and feel forced, espe­cially when a single epis­ode later the mael­strom con­tin­ues with him at the centre.

It is char­ac­ters such as Sak­ur­ano, the peppy coun­cil pres­id­ent, and Lili­cia, the catty head of the journ­al­ism club, which come off best with a more subtle approach used to com­ple­ment rather than con­trast the humour. For its part, the guf­faws con­tinue into the third epis­ode, but the external ref­er­ences thin out or obscure them­selves entirely and the com­edy is releg­ated to bemus­ing situ­ations rather than con­tinu­ous Excel Saga-esque par­od­ies. As with any humour, its worth is meas­ured in its rel­ev­ance and it is easy to see the series fail­ing to con­nect with many an audi­ence: the appeal is res­ol­utely spe­cific and relies on a will­ing­ness to bear out the inev­it­able bar­ren patches which favour of plot or char­ac­ter devel­op­ment over slapstick.

Stu­dio Deen does well to keep up the pace of visu­als, how­ever with muted hues, head-deforming hair styles and whale-size eyes there’s not much they haven’t done before espe­cially with char­ac­ter designs as well worn as these — des­pite hav­ing an echo of Happy Les­son to them. Voice act­ors are mostly unheard of though Mariko Honda play­ing Sak­ur­ano seems to chan­nel every annoy­ing female char­ac­ter that ever lived in an attempt to be more notice­able. Time will tell whether char­ac­ters such as the Shi­ina sis­ters are given more than per­func­tory roles and whether the humour can con­tinue as well as it has star­ted out. Eas­ily a divis­ive show for some, but qual­ity com­edy that tran­scends girls fall­ing over is worth per­sist­ing with. ¶