Koi to Senkyou to Chocolate - 06

KoiChoco follows up its best character-driven episode yet with a pretty darn good one focused on the “Election” part of the title.

There have been more than a few anime over the years that have had student politics as a primary – or at least prominent secondary – focus. But I’m hard-pressed to recall one that seems as genuinely interested in the politics and how they work, rather than interested mostly in using them as a plot device. As a political junkie myself I sense the hand of a political geek at work here – someone genuinely interested in the minutiae of voting blocks, the influence of major parties and the uphill battle for independent candidates, campaign financing, and yes – even the issues. It was the “Election” that most interested me in July and while the “Love” definitely grabbed me with episode 5, I‘m still finding this aspect of the series a very interesting and smartly-written one.

Before that, though, there is still some unfinished business from the excellent fifth episode, and that’s the matter of Mifuyu’s love note to Yuuki. Yeah, it was obvious that the it would be mixed up with the speech but there was still a fair amount of tension as Yuuki began to read it. We normally don’t have confessions blow up this early in a series, especially from a doomed secondary character – but (un)fortunately for Mifuyu, Yuuki chose to chalk up what he was seeing to a stress-based hallucination. That’s a bit of a credulity stretch, to be honest, and I’d rather have seen the issue confronted head-on – but I don’t think the crisis has been averted, only deferred. Hopefully Yuuki knows deep down what he was reading, and only deluded himself momentarily as a form of mental self-defense with his speech looming.

I think we can safely say Yuuki is not much of a natural politician. First he royally screws up his interview by getting his manifesto reported as being primarily about spelling his name right, then he trips and smashes his nose bloody as he’s about to give his own speech. That’s awfully convenient, the way he scattered Mifuyu’s letter and had to improvise – but the improv wasn’t half-bad when you consider his best hope of advancing was as a sort of novelty candidate anyway. He was preceded by Shinonome, a lock to qualify for the second round, but I actually found her speech rather dry and professorial for a student election – though that didn’t stop it from going over very well. Being an extremely attractive girl probably wasn’t a totally irrelevant factor in that either, though as the candidate of the Finance Commission she was a lock to advance anyway.

As the votes are about to be counted we get another one of those weird KoiChoco moments that doesn’t get explained. The girl reporter who interviewed Yuuki last time shows up to do a live feed from Oojima HQ, only this time “she” is wearing a boy’s uniform, and declares himself male. This person is Shiohama Hidaka, and the fact that the seiyuu is Sanada Asami is no help, as she’s played plenty of boys as well as girls. I don’t get the sense that this is some weird phenomenon that only Yuuki can see, and maybe it’s going to be nothing more than a running gag with no deeper significance – we’ll see.

As for the returns themselves, they’re quite interesting politically. Apparently the seniors often vote for an independent candidate because they’re more inclined to make a lark out of it as they’re graduating anyway, so Yuuki’s vote share climbs as the count progresses. There’s also the matter of no independent having reached the second round in seven years, but with Mouri-kaichou’s Security Commission sidelined due to the Oosama scandal, there are actually two possibilities – Yuuki and a mysterious fourth candidate, Shirakawa Ayame. She’s running as a revolutionary but is actually a tool of the “Katahira Faction” whose purpose in the race is to qualify and split the independent votes in the second round, thus fouling Mouri’s attempts to control the process through Yuuki.

That’s quite an interesting and clever political setup by anime standards, and that’s not even factoring in the policy issue regarding the clubs and the financial aid students. Mouri is using Yuuki as a proxy, of course, albeit a somewhat willing one. And while Shinonome seems to place well ahead of Moheji in the first round, it’s clear that the reason for this is that his camp intentionally threw some of their votes to Ayame to help her advance past the primary – though not enough, as she failed by two votes, much to the relief of Team Oojima. Even so, Mouri seems to think Oojima might be at risk from this Katahira Faction that hates him so much, enough so that he orders that Yuuki receive protection. I’m officially quite interested in seeing where both Love and Election go from here, so now it seems as if it’s about time the focus turns to chocolate – we’ll see if that subplot manages to be as involving as the other two.

10 comments

Anonymous

August 18, 2012 at 2:30 am

No comment on the Madoka Magica cosplay Enzo? ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

admin

August 18, 2012 at 2:50 am

Only that it was apparently Vocaloids in the VN!

Anonymous

August 18, 2012 at 3:48 am

The mask guy is from General Affairs and Mouri is from Security commission.

dv

August 18, 2012 at 4:25 am

This is the first time in a while, an anime guy has a nose bleed for the right reasons.
Probably the first time ever uses it to his advantage.

Highway

August 19, 2012 at 12:50 am

Two really strong episodes, and I thought they did everything right except that way too obvious gag with the script / love letter-story. Also, like Anonymous a couple above me said, Moheji just doesn't have the support that Satsuki does. It wasn't General Affairs (Moheji's) people who were supporting Ayame. The Katahira faction was the group doing that, out of Security, with President Mouri. If Security had been more united, that would have made it easy for Oojima to pass the primary, and Ayame wouldn't have been anywhere close. What that also says is that Oojima got far more than the amount of outside votes that Mouri thought he would need.

It's interesting that whoever this Katahira group is, they are so against Mouri that they are willing to sacrifice the future of the Security Commission's power, since Mouri is supporting Oojima specifically to prevent incumbency by either of the other two main parties. Katahira surely has to know that he's having Security support Oojima, and are just trying to spoil it for Mouri. This also makes me wonder if the Katahira are the ones responsible for outing the scandal before the show time frame, maybe even the ones responsible for running over Kana Oogibashi at the beginning.

Such intrigue, tho, it's really great in such a series as this.

admin

August 19, 2012 at 1:31 am

Hmm… How can we be certain that the Katahira faction wasn't working in concert with Moheji if we don't know who they actually are? I certainly agree it's likely they were the ones who broke the "Oosama incident" – which I suspect Mouri is actually innocent of wrongdoing in connection with.

One scenario I could see happening is that Oojima ends up having to throw his support to Shininome to prevent Moheji from winning – even if it means the loss of the clubs. Possibly her being suspicious that he wants a quid pro quo deal, but he says no – I'll support you unconditionally – but I'm going to try and convince you the clubs are worth saving anyway.

This is certainly following the Mashifony arc for me, in terms of my interest growing steadily after a pretty modest start. It's a good series.

Highway

August 19, 2012 at 2:10 am

Well, in the epilogue, Mouri says that Ayame's votes came from Public Safety (his own faction), not from General Services (Moheji's). Maybe Katahira was coordinating with Moheji, but the only way I see it serving Moheji's purposes is if their goal was not to qualify Ayame, but to prevent Oojima and Ayame from both qualifying (which is certainly an option, given how close they both were).

I can definitely see an end scenario where Oojima has to 'sacrifice' his candidacy and decide whether to support Satsuki or Moheji, and picks Satsuki, because her goals are better, even if it means the end of the Food Club. A lot of how that will go will really depend on how the romance goes, although I'm starting to wonder if the romance will go at all, or if it will be just something we see all these girls around to provide interest but no real love, since we're half the way through and the only one who loves Yuuki is Mifuyu, who's stalwart in her self-defeating support of Yuuki x Chisato.

Highway

August 19, 2012 at 2:12 am

Also, I think I mentioned that I watched Mashiroiro Symphony after the fact, so I didn't really have that increase of interest. Although that led to a little bit of my enjoyment floundering as it seemingly pointlessly switched love interests.

admin

August 19, 2012 at 2:52 am

"Pintlessly"? How can it be pointless if he ended up with the right girl? 😛

steelbound

August 20, 2012 at 8:25 am

I decided to pick up this show after lightly skimming your episode 5 and 6 posts and I'm glad I did. For all the talk that Koichoco was garnishing I assumed it was one type of show but it turned out to be way more entertaining and educational then mindless fan-servicey.

I hope they explain all the weird bits before the end, it be funny if the main character was actually in the Matrix and it was glitching on him.

Koi to Senkyou to Chocolate – 06

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