You know the drill by now. Otagal is a romcom that does the survey course of every romcon trope, without the actual romance. That’s sort of an interesting twist in itself, and everyone is so likeable that the lack of romantic development is mostly fine with me. It does raise the question, though, of whether it (the manga, who knows if the anime will ever get far enough) ever will make a decision. Even though the romantic chemistry is obviously stronger with Kotoko, the inclination of the series to this point is very much vibing “I can’t choose”. Is it OK if it actually ends in that mode? I’m not really sure I know the answer to that one.
The wheel of of romcom falls on “school festival” this time, and we get the middle portion of that cycle – the first having been the preparation sleepover, and the finale surely the fireworks legend (obviously Takuya will watch them with both girls). The festival itself is focused on the cosplay cafe, with the Rep leveraging his two bijin to the max. No shift overlap between Amane and Ichiji, and a costume shift in the middle of the day. As for Seo, he’s working both shifts as Lord Earth, and I wouldn’t imagine he’ll be required to do a change. He even gets recognized by a loli visitor (who has no clue who Kei’s “Vamp” Glittermon is).
There’s a bit of false drama with the “Mr./Ms.” festival voting, but there’s obviously no chance Takuya is going to choose one girl or the other (he writes in both). The only interesting part of this is Kotoko’s reaction when she briefly thinks Seo-kun voted only for her – “I shouldn’t be happy about this” but clearly is. She’s incredibly popular with the boys in her maid cosplay, but when Kei takes over as bellcow the crowd turns decidedly female. One of them is Sayu-chan, who proves to be a big hit with the customers even after they find out she’s not actually Kei’s little sister.
Sayu has the opportunity to out Kei for the neurotic nerd she is at home, but being the preternaturally mature tyke she is, she plays the loyal soldier under torture. She also tries to manoeuvre Kei into asking Takuya to watch the fireworks with her, cutting right to the chase – if she snoozes, she might lose to Kotoko. But no one in the trio (Kotoko is definitely the closest) is ready to stake any claims that might jeopardize the three-way love-fest. During the lunch break Kei and Kotoko force Takuya into a crossplay session, though he seemingly dodges the bullet as far as actually wearing one at the cafe.
We know what Kei’s afternoon costume is – “Heisei Gal“, which is actually kind of clever and hilarious. No word on what Kotoko is going with but the “Glittermon” character she supposedly resembles seems like a pretty safe bet. Again, we pretty much know how this is going to end – the three protagonists “jinxing” themselves to be a threesome forever by watching the fireworks. It’s not exactly suspenseful to be sure. But again, as with the too-neat resolutions last week, it seems petty to criticize Otagal for not being something we all know it isn’t.
