After seemingly an eternity being pushed back for athletic nationalism, Koichoco was back for 2 episodes this week. This first episode of the two was mainly about preparations for and fundraising during the bazaar. It was also about character development between Yuuki and Mifuyu. Also, much of the cast was in Madoka cosplay for a bit, so there’s that too.
First for how the campaigns are being run. Judging by this episode, Yuuki’s campaign appears to be going for the otaku/fujoshi vote to get them through the primary. The only normal item they sold during the bazaar was supposed to by Yuuki’s legendary roll cake, but even that got tied in as part of obtaining cosplay photos. I would hardly think that in normal situations that would be enough to make the cut off, but maybe there is a lot of apathy among voters in the primary. Actually, in real life that’s largely the case.
Which is helpful because Yuuki’s campaign team seems reasonably organized. I think the setting of the price for the Oojima Rolls provided a perfect example. As the candidate, Yuuki should be spending the time appealing to voters in the best way he can. That is unless there is something only he can do, like bake those rolls or give speeches to the rest of the students. Chisato, in running his campaign, has done well to keep his attentions on the race itself rather than the details of how to raise money. I think it shows a good relationship between the two, even if in this context it is strictly professional.
On the other hand, Yuuki’s relationship with Mifuyu seems to be heading in another direction entirely. Long cast as the friend who stayed out of the way for the sake of Chisato, Mifuyu spent this episode splitting time between writing Yuuki’s campaign speech and casting herself as the heroine in a romantic novel opposite him. It was a rather disappointing development for Mifuyu’s character. Yet it visually only went from following the script on Yuuki’s fake confession to hesitantly rejecting it as part of her wanted to believe that it was true.
The best part of her development in this episode came as she explained why she became friends with Chisato. As she was a year older, everyone of her classmates deferred to her except for Chisato, who seems to be friendly with everyone else. I have no issue with that at all, rather it comes when Yuuki enters the picture. She casts away her own happiness to try to make sure that her friend ends up with the one she likes. However as a harem show, Koichoco has to have Mifuyu also fall for the lead. So when she is alone with him, she plays the role of jealous girlfriend whenever Hazuki and Isara appear engaged in conversations that cross into personal territory. I just hope this doesn’t drag on too long.
As for other parts of the episode, there’s the convenient mix up of Mifuyu’s erotic fiction and Yuuki’s campaign speech because I couldn’t see that happening once she printed them both out. Tatsumi was also tapping up Yuuki for some post-primary support since he believes he’s the only viable anti-Shinonome candidate. That angle could see some nasty conflict between the two campaigns. There were also two scenes of Yume engaging in his implied BL relationship with Yuuki. The cream on Yuuki’s face was rather cliched, but at least acting out scenes from the manga based on their implied relationship made the campaign a decent amount of money. Though that would still fall short of the two main campaigns being able to sell things like character goods and CDs. Surely on the latter it would be hard to pay for the time to rent a recording studio.
Lower Mid-Table 