You are the happy couple whether you like it or not. Seig, Lise, Bal, Fiene, Endo, Kobayashi…
Following the pattern of the show, this episode gives us a good deal more of normal Earth. After a follow-up to the end of the previous episode, with Lise and Seig having a cute romantic moment, a plan is drawn up to actually combat the Witch of Yore. Since the Witch is defeated harmlessly on the Reverse Harem route, that means trying to get the support of all the potential bachelors, as well as what other forces can be mustered. Along the way Lise makes good friends with the little boy prodigy of the lot (inciting a little jealousy from Seig, which is probably healthy but needless) and, in general, the Priest and the military forces of Lise’s father are also secured as anti-witch forces.
Dorung the process, Bal once again tries to win Fiene over, and this time he’s a little more successful, not only professing his love but promising to grow even stronger than her, so that she’ll no longer have to fight for her life, which finally gets an unabashedly positive response from Fiene.
Meanwhile, in Japan, school is starting back up again. Our leads have grown quite close over summer break, and put their practice to the test announcing for the sports festival basketball game. They do a really good job, and the broadcast club president rewards them by calling the two lovebirds on open mic. So now the whole school is pretty sure they’re dating and… yeah, are they not? Well, it’s not official between the two of them at least, but we’ll see how long that holds out.
Between Endo x Kobayashi, Bal x Fiene, and Seig x Lise, this whole setup is a matchmaker’s paradise right now.
As a last little section, the one Bachelor that Kobayashi thought would be a problem, the sinister teacher, has Fiene’s mom (normally a post-plot character) stepping up to say she might be able to do something about him. Exactly what, we’ll see next time.
I actually like that the basketball games take a lot of meat in the episode, because I feel like it’s important for us to get to know our pair of announcers and understand where they’re at. Granted, it’s also important to prepare for this whole Witch of Yore thing, but that’s clearly going to be addressed episode by episode; Japan needs a little more love.
Right now, I’m fairly confident that there will be a nasty scare along the way (since Lise is still under mental assault) but that everyone can be guided to a happy ending. I’m also fairly confident in the pacing of the fantasy stuff as we need material with the off-route bachelors as we bring them in to the fight as well as continued progress for the main couples. I am a little concerned that the Japan material may be too much of an afterthought. Mr. Model needs to pay off, along with whatever he knows, and the time for him to do it in a way that’s not abrupt… isn’t elapsed yet, but is slowly slipping away.
If the show’s pattern holds, next week will be light on the Japan scenes, but we’ll see just where it goes when the day comes.