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It's a very messy first Episode, with the pacing going completely nuts from that insane scene where Char and Laura thrashes those hostage takers. And even that scene felt utterly stupid - taking hostages on the very door step of the IS Academy is the height of lunacy, and a probable death wish, given there's a good chance that many of the patrons are students of that Academy.
And Char and Laura working part-time was just as abruptly presented, and didn't really make sense in my view either. Although I will henceforth call Lura x Char EU Shipping.
So yes. It was acceptable for ten minutes, and after that, the episode ran into the ground.
That being said, I'm a Char fan because she's one of the more multi-dimensional characters that's not solely defined by her attitude and position towards Ichika, unless the rest of the Harem. She has agency, independent of Ichika, even after her initial character arc was resolved. And unfortunately. the said sense of agency is absent for Houki, Rin, Cecilia and Laura, either from the start, or after they entered Ichika's harem proper.
It's ironic, because I agree that Laura and Cecilia's character could have been just as complex as Char, if not more so, but after their initial character intros, their personalities and circumstances were either erased on played for laughs. The problem is, by circling their characters around Ichika, that potential isn't fulfilled, and that's frustrating.
The other problem that I have is that Rin is played up as a joke, "other" Osanajimi. Nevermind that she probably had to beat one of the largest pools of IS Candidates on Earth to become the IS Representative of CHINA. It's a huge crying shame that this was never explored, even though you'd think that this fact (and also, the fact that she spent a good deal of her childhood in Japan, and therefore probably doesn't seat well with Chinese ultra-nationalist, nor Japanese ultra-nationalist for that matter) is going to factor in her character. Moreso than Laura or Cecelia, that potential was wasted. Largely, I suspect it's because the author never had personal contact with students from China studying abroad on Scholarship. I think anyone whose encountered these kind of students in University would find it harder to buy Rin as a character.
Houki, is... Houki. She's meant to satisfy the Otaku Database, by presenting a Tsundere Osanajimi which fulfills all of those check boxes. She does get more development, but much of it is Ichika centric.
And Ichika.... sigh. You are surrounded by females, almost exclusively on a daily basis. You see them wearing absurdly skimpy fanservice centric IS frames in practice all the time. I cannot understand how you could get that embarrassed with your haremette loose state of dress considering what you see on a daily basis, and that's before accounting for the fact that you know two of them since a very young age.
Actually, I think one of the reasons why Char is so popular, is that Ichika doesn't collapse into an awkward jelly whenever he speaks to her, even if shes' strangely or minimally dressed for that matter.
Last edited by novalysis; 2013-10-05 at 06:06.
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It was not even HanaKana factor because somehow or the other I actually failed to realize it was her until after the Charlotte reveal. 
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