[frivolity]

The way I see it, graduation is a day for everyone to enjoy, especially the graduating seniors. The ceremony should therefore be about the shared experiences among them, with focus on events that most of the students were a part of. It was therefore inappropriate for them to hijack the president's speech in that fashion since the president is a representative of the entire student body, and his speech should be addressed at everyone.

Furthermore, Misaki's speech was not about the rest of the students at all. It was about Sakurasou only, without much reference to the student body thinking about their own experiences and how they've changed over their time in school. Misaki's speech did not relate her experiences to what the common student went through, and she went on and on about her and Sakurasou, which makes the connection extremely weak. I'm not sure if the speech in the light novel differs due to time constraints, but what I've seen in the anime seemed to come off as more of a rambling speech.

Sure, graduation is a time of heightened emotions, but heightened emotions do not mean that people start losing all sense of rationality. Not to mention that a major part of graduation is about the need to let go and move on with life. I find it a real stretch for a speech like that to actually be able to rally the student body to oppose the demolition of Sakurasou, especially when we consider how disinterested the rest of the students were about the petition.

I can see why so many of us have been touched by Misaki's speech since we already know what these guys have gone through. But if we put all that aside and think about it from the perspective of someone who's watching the episode on its own without knowing what the people at Sakurasou have gone through, is the student population's reaction realistic, given what we know about them from previous episodes, as well as their views on Sakurasou?

Of course, we'll probably get a whole range of answers for that last question since our answers will be influenced by the huge diversity of high school experiences that all of us have gone through.