Seitokai no Ichizon - Episode 7

It may be the school's summer break, but for some reason the student council members are all still spending their days in their meeting room, finding themselves not only bored but feeling too hot to do anything of note. Of course, there's only one answer to this bout of lethargy - It's time for a field trip, to Tokyo no less.


So, and in a bit of a change from the norm, we get to see some more of the student council outside of the same old four walls of the council room, starting with the long overnight train journey to Tokyo (for Sakurano has no time for aeroplanes). This brings us plenty of opportunity to reinforce the characters of the various council members, from the lecherous Ken through to the gaming obsessed Mafuyu. To be honest, it's Mafuyu who gets all of the best material here, from her suitcase packed to the rafters with gaming consoles through to some mildly amusing RPG references which hit the spot better than most of the fare this series has to offer.

Once the train journey is done with, our quintet of council members find that their Hokkaido backgrounds had done little to prepare them for the heat of Tokyo in summer, leaving them trapped in their hotel rooms and unable to venture out into its searing temperatures. Thus, time is passed by telling ghost stories, which scare Sakurano so much she gets her revenge by making the other council members dress up and add extra words to the end of their sentences. All pretty standard fare here, with only Chizuru's transformation into some kind of moe sheep having any real comedy value to share with us before the episode closes out.

As episodes of Seitokai no Ichizon, this was certainly one of the better efforts so far, although in terms of humorous anime in general it still offers little compared to numerous other series I can think of. It's major problem seems to be that it's so stuck on the shallow, two-dimensional archetypes of its main characters that it's left with little room for manoeuvre, thus limiting its comic potential hugely. Compare and contrast to the Hidamari Sketches and Lucky Stars of this world, and the different is night and day - And certainly not in Seitokai no Ichizon's favour either.