I think I get what they were going for with Chisato in Episode 9, but they really did overdo it. Chisato is now coming off like the female equivalent of one of those guys that gets upset everytime his girlfriend gets complimented by a guy or even just interacts nicely with another guy.
I can understand Chisato being a bit upset in general, and upset in particular over the Satsuki situation, but it was honestly kind of lame how she got upset over Oojima rushing to Isara's defense and also with him merely testing out Michiru's harmonica (anime can get pretty silly sometimes with things like "indirect kisses"
). Oojima has had nothing even approaching romantic interactions with Michiru the entire show, so Chisato really does come off as overly clingy and even a bit paranoid given her reaction to Oojima helping Michiru with her harmonica.
Chisato needs to come to grips with the fact that Oojima has become a popular guy... which is kind of
the point at the moment!
While I feel a bit sorry for Chisato, this latest episode has put me squarely into the Oojima/Satsuki shipping camp. I'd now only be Ok with Oojima/Chisato end if Chisato shows a much greater ability to handle Oojima having friendly interactions with other girls.
I'm also now comfortable completely ruling out Mifuyu and Michiru ends - Mifuyu going into the drama routine when Oojima said he loved her in this episode tells me that Mifuyu has accepted romantic loss when it comes to Oojima. Meanwhile, this episode came the closest of them all to a Oojima/Michiru romantic moment... and it resulted in Oojima getting into a nasty accident or almost getting into one (and
wow, talk about a preview absolutely destroying the effect of a cliffhanger... anime, will you never learn?
). So, yeah, I doubt Michiru is going to want to push that much further given what happened here.
In spite of the complaints I made above, I really enjoyed this episode. It was great to see the scheming and strategizing of two of the three main camps (which in turn leaves me wondering if Satsuki is too much of an one-woman show for her own campaign's good - there was no scenes of her talking to
her people). It was also neat to meet a new important character, who seems to be getting set up as an antagonist of sorts.
The election side of this story continues to deliver in flying colors, and it made for a pretty compelling watch. The romance side had some interesting conflicts and developments, but if they're aiming for a Oojima/Chisato end, I think they overdid things a bit this episode (OTOH, if this is leading into Chisato learning to let go of Oojima, then this episode effectively shows that she perhaps does need to).