If there’s any real news this week, I suppose it must be that Laura Bodewig is still tsuntsun – she hasn’t taken out her membership card in the Orimura Ichika fan club yet. It only tool one episode for Cecilia to come on board, but Germans are apparently made of sterner stuff.

On the other hand, maybe the reason she was beating so badly on Cecilia and Rin is because she was trying to eliminate the competition, one by one. These so-called practice matches are pretty laughable – Laura landed both her opponents in the hospital and might have killed them if the Orimura siblings hadn’t butted in. It was actually a well-staged and pretty intense fight – I was reminded for a surrealistic moment of the “awakening” of Eva-01 scene from NGE.

The hot rumor in school is that whoever wins the interclass tournament will get a date with Ichika – though he doesn’t know it yet – so maybe Laura’s determination to win it is yet another foreshadowing that Ichika’s harem is about to grow. The teachers decide to make the tourney a pairs event, and Ichika gallantly says he’ll pair with “Charles” so no one accidentally discovers her secret. Once the draw is announced – the details aren’t revealed – everyone seems pretty aghast. Meanwhile Charlotte and Ichika have been getting ever more familiar as roommates. While this is a harem as much as any series could be, my gut is that we’re likely to get no romantic resolution whatsoever – but if we did, there’s a pretty strong Charlotte vibe at the moment. Ichika seems to legitimately have no romantic interest whatsoever in either of his osananajimi, and let’s be honest – Cecilia certainly never had a chance. Charlotte, OTOH, seems to have both the ability and the inclination to light his fire. And she has more private time with him that anyone on campus…