Four Seasons: This student council ain’t finished yet. Or will it ever be?
Digitalboy always said to me that I don’t have appreciation for slice-of-life. I admit that. For someone who finds curiosity as an asset, I find my inner fire on the weird, peculiar, taboo, and for the most part, insane. Of course, that also means that I don’t find anything interesting from the norm. This attitude puts me at odds with society, where everyone sees me as an embodiment of the abnormal, the uncommon, the perverse, and the reverse. No, no, I’m not bragging about it. I’m just telling you about it because it will greatly affect the entirety of this post.
If we are to consider the self-description, anyone can quickly say I shouldn’t have anything to do with Seitokai No Ichizon and leave it be. That’s what I also thought at first, until I watched, rewatched, and found that there’s more than what your senses and way of thinking can perceive, even if you think the other way round. Consider this Crowning Moment of Glory to surpass Trapeze for now.
You might ask how the post’s title fits into the post. Let me list a few things I did:
- Reverse the timeline. This is actually the first thing I did when I tried to “tinker” with Sei☆Zon. If the first episodes supplied you with nonsense and the everyday life of the characters and their eventual compromise on what’s to come, the final episodes made peace with the show’s roots, giving the viewers the missing puzzle piece on the how and why of the Student Council’s tight-knit relationship. Watch the show backwards from the final episode up to the first, and you may actually feel that it’s the correct timeline rather than the normal one.
- Take the Key, put it in, and turn the knob the other way. Sugisaki Ken is the supposed-to-be (judging from what the other characters said) main character of the show. He literally runs the show, and it’s never the same without him. But think of Key before being part of the Student Council: Alone, helpless, depised, and literally in shambles. How did he suddenly become vice-president of the Student Council thinking he can make a harem out of its members? Compare the two Keys, and it will definitely make you curious on finding the link, even make you think that the current Key is nothing but a worthless duplicate of the real one (literally). Sugisaki himself said that the current Key is made from his past encounters with the council members. And so it concludes itself: It was the real Key that opened the locks of the council member’s hearts, not by turning it the knob the usual way, but the other way.
- Mass Tsundere. Look closely at the other council members aside from Sugisaki. See Kurimu. See her trying to be appealing more than she already is. See Minatsu. See her inner tsundere tendencies backed up with her tomboyish personality. See Mafuyu, see her fear of men despite going ga-ga over BL. See Chizuru. See her gaze that can actually strip Key of his morals, his ideals, and eventually, his clothes. Now that you’ve seen them, see this: Kurimu doesn’t get the reaction she likes out of Key, so she tries her best to prove Sugisaki wrong, even at the extent of being wrong herself. Minatsu is your typical “strong girl” who doesn’t even have a slither of strength or defense when it comes to her past (becoming a bride), present (the closet liking for wedding clothes, probably due to her past dream on becoming a bride), and future (her and Mafuyu moving out), so she secretly relies on Key. Mafuyu fears men, but because she and Sugisaki have the same likes, dislikes, and even behavior, she takes an eventual liking to Key. Chizuru also sees some kind of similarity in Ken (they were both outcasts of some sort), so she tries to “guide” Key while sporting an overall air of maturity. See this, see that, and then compare. See the mass tsundere now?
- Pay attention to what’s on the Whiteboard. Use this with #1 and #2, and you’ll actually get results. This also works on non-council members like Toudou Lilicia.
Amazingly, I think Sei☆Zon wins this season hands down. Whereas the others failed to follow up on the initial impression, and with Trapeze suddenly going stale, Sei☆Zon suddenly went from normal and mundane, to uncanny and interesting. This suddenly spurs me to find the novel. But first, the manga.
Really? I found it tedious. I caught a great deal of the references, but teh funneh just wasn’t there for me (a surprise since I usually love these kinds of shows). I much preferred Astro Fighter Sunred II for my lulz, and there were FAR better anime for interesting plots, stories or characterization.. but then I suppose someone out there has to like SeiZon enough to give it a #1
I can’t really call it a liking. I mean, it just took me by sheer force by the use of a concluding climax episode. Like I said, it’s only a temporary Crowning Moment of Glory. By the third rewatch, it’s going to go stale and boring, I wouldn’t remember it otherwise.
And I’m actually disregarding the lulz factor of parody-filled punchlines. If you thought this post is full of/because of that, then I think you’re gravely mistaken for the show’s summary.
I did misread your intent (that you found the ending to be enjoyable). My bad. I’ll have to stop posting during my breaks at work
I was also wondering about your view of the comedy, but temperus conveniently asked for me. The drama (I refuse to call it slice-of-life) was surprisingly good throughout the series. Still, the fact that it came in small doses certainly added to its punch. I doubt it’d work as well as a pure drama.
temperus: It’s fine. Baka-Raptor actually opened a good point about it, so I’m going to answer his comment in response to yours.
Baka-Raptor: If we are to psychologically rationalize the show, we’ll definitely arrive to the conclusion that the show IS slice-of-life, and can never live on without its elements, be it comedy, drama, the presence/absence of a plot, and crescendo/reverse-crescendo events. If it was pure drama, it would lose more than one element to justify its status as slice-of-life (no comedy means it’s not normal, plot importance is screwed or mixed up, and the crescendo/reverse-crescendo events or the lack of will sow more confusion on the course of the show’s timeline).
True Seitokai no Ichizon is the only series last season that for me had the same watching priority as Umineko. Thing is, the final episode really won me over, especially the part where he met all those girls in different season, and how they changed him. It might have appeared as cheezy to the other people, but it’s the nicest bit of SeiZon. It was done not abruptly, but bit by bit and in the end it would just smack you right in the face.
Normally I usually read a lot of dissing for this show. I’m glad someone put Seitokai in a positive light, even though I’ve yet to finish the series… >_>
Actually, before I tried to “dissect” Sei☆Zon, I went with the flow of the people saying it’s crappy because it’s slice-of-life, there’s no real plot, no evident character development, stale jokes, and bad cases of abundant parodies. After I did dissect it, however, you can tell there’s more to what meets the eye, especially if you ignore the parodies and puns. The show didn’t really try to break any Fourth Wall because there wasn’t any. And once the focus is out of the student council room and into the council members, that’s where the real beauty of the show kicks in.