This is the first episode in some time where the show just focuses on one plot. In this case, it’s the obligatory sports festival episode. Koshitan is determined to have go as exactly as she planned but obviously, she should know at this point that she shouldn’t jinx herself. It’s kind of nice to see Koshitan try to play the part of student council president in greater detail again. When you think about it, that aspect of the show got lost in all the insanity.
Immediately, Koshitan’s plan gets derailed when the student council and a bunch of other students inform her of a ton of last-minute issues. To be honest, I figured this the first half of this episode would be dedicated to Koshitan and the Deer Club running around the school campus to resolve every issue with presumably hilarious results. Imagine my confusion then that all the obstacles get taken care offscreen. I don’t know if this is how things played out in the manga but regardless, this just seems like a huge missed opportunity to me. This does allow the episode to dedicated most of its runtime to the actual festival but I’d argue the episode could feel more eventful if it wasn’t just the festival.
As you may have figured, the biggest wild card to the sports festival is Nokotan. She keeps goofing off at the event and combined with the other characters’ quirks, things go off track and behind schedule. Some of the chaos is quite funny. In particular, I really enjoyed one of the races where the contestants has to eat deer-related stuff as they run. Also funny is the recurring gag of Koshitan losing years off her life as she watches all her planning go down the drain.
That being said, the sports festival plot is one of the very few times where I actually find Nokotan annoying. Normally, I’m fine with Nokotan sabotaging everything and not giving a shit but it does feel a step too far this time around since this event is something that’s important to Koshitan. You can argue that Koshitan is taking things too seriously but that shouldn’t always excuse Nokotan from being a nuisance. Frankly, I’m on Koshitan’s side when she finally gives Nokotan a piece of her mind (albeit at the risk of exposing her real personality to everyone). A shame then that it goes completely nowhere. I realize asking for anything deep in this show is pointless but it would’ve been interesting if the show actually used this plot to explore the relationship between these two.
I’m a bit puzzled with the animation in this episode. Generally, this show has some pretty solid animation from Wit Studio. One could argue that a key to this show’s success is the animation elevating much of the comedy. In this episode however, it seems like the staff had to cut corners. Some shots get reused with some changes to them. By far the most egregious is the cheerleading scene, which is literally just a minute long slideshow of still frames while the OP plays in the background. That gives me the impression that the animators might be struggling to meet deadlines and it makes me worried about the animation for the remaining three episodes of the show.
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