In many ways I think this was a very important episode for Tsurune: Kazemai Koukou Kyuudoubu.  It’s one I knew was coming later or probably sooner, and which had the potential to tell us a lot about Tsurune’s long-term staying power.  The extensive focus on Minato and Takigawa-san’s relationship in the first two episodes allowed the series to get off to a really strong start, but it was a mirage – that was never going to be the backbone of this narrative, and Tsurune was always going to go as far as the clubroom dynamic would be able to carry it.

Now that we’ve gotten that episode, I’d say the results were closer to what I feared than what I hoped.  This wasn’t bad or anything, but in every respect it felt a lot more generic and (I’m sorry, but it’s true) light-novelish than the first two eps.  In much the same way that the boys are window-dressing in most “mixed gender” school series these days, the girls are here – there’s no question who the focus of this show is.  But ultimately the bigger problem is the boys themselves, as they’re the ones actually tasked with carrying the bulk of the narrative.

In sum, I see two main issues there.  One, I don’t especially like any of them.  Seiya rubs me the wrong way, Onogi-kun is a pill, Nanao is way too much Merha for me and I just want to give Ryouhei a Valium.  Two, each of them is pretty much a template more than an actual person – someone filling a role.  This is a problem in a lot of KyoAni series and a lot of LN adaptations (and non-LN too, if we’re honest).  I’m not saying there’s no chance one or two of them will grow past that, but I am saying history gives us little hard reason to predict they will.

Really, that leaves me hanging an awful lot of my hopes – probably to an unrealistic degree – on Takigawa-san.  And he is still connected to the story – not killed off as I feared the episode title (what did that mean, then?), and even looped in as the new coach of the Kazemai Kyuudoubu.  He’s also the one who filled out the target panic diary the guy at the archery shop (who the guy with the glasses, who’s actually from powerhouse Kirisaki High, told Ryouhei to see about getting help for Minato) gave Ryouhei to read.  Minato has already read it as it turns out, having been given the original directly by Takigawa himself.

Ending on a good note is something Tsurune has done for three straight weeks, and that actually does suggest a certain savvy on the part of the staff (which isn’t too surprising in this case).  I’ll be interested to see how Onogi is connected to Masa-san, though I hope this doesn’t turn into a petty squabble between Onogi and Minato over his attention.  Maybe there’s enough upside here to carry Tsurune past the limitations of its cast – right now it’s a mix of stock and genuinely unusual elements with no way or knowing which will ultimately win out.  I’m certainly still interested and still hopeful, but my expectations are probably a bit more modest than they were this time last week.