[Trajan]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

What an insightful piece, Trajan! Thanks.

May I just say how much I hate the all-too-frequent anime girl who hits boys? I would guess Saki hit Satoru at least half-a-dozen times in those first two episodes. I find her much less appealing as a result. All that hitting usually signals the tsun icebox phase before the dere heatlamp, which would suggest Saki ends up with Satoru, not Shun.

Thanks for the compliment Seiji. The interesting thing about Shun is that in each of the two episodes, he's been both part of, but yet separate from, the rest of the group. In the first episode, when they are playing the game at sunset, Shun is the referee, not on one of the teams. And in the second episode, during both games, he stands apart from the rest of his teammates and his "game piece" is different from the pieces of his teammates. If they were a platoon, he would be the Lt. and the other four would be the grunts.

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

I find her interplay with Satoru annoying too, but I don't think she's tsundere or anything like that. Remember this is a novel in the first place, so I doubt anime tropes are applicable here. I think Satoru just gets on her nerve. The guy's a pain in the ass (specially with her), that much is a fact.

Yeah, the trope is a little overused in anime at this point, but I've always viewed a tsundere as a character who hits boys to cover up her own feelings, and often when the boy did nothing wrong. Here Saki hits Satoru when he acts like an ass and deserves it. If anything, I think Satoru likes Saki and tries to get a rise out of her by acting like an idiot; it's his childish way of flirting with her.