Thankfully this episode was more entertaining than last week’s disaster. Nevertheless it’s feeling more and more like I’m wasting my time with this series. The series is gradually straying away from what I envisioned it to be based on the early episodes. I don’t really want to drop the series at this point in the series, but if it doesn’t turn around in the next episode I may just stop watching it. This episode spent quite a lot of time on Mina. By the end of the episode I think she’s becoming more interesting and likeable. On the other hand, the way Sayuri was portrayed in this episode makes me actually think less of her. Of course, at this point in time Sayuri is still a fairly undeveloped character so things could change once we understand her more.

As much as I would like to praise this episode, I can’t bring myself to do it without really pushing the envelope. This episode put me to sleep. I ended up having to re-watch about half of the episode because I missed the second half. My expectations for this kind of series is never set very high, but an episode like this one makes me regret even spending time to review it. The only real positive thing I can say about this episode was the fact the art wasn’t the worst yet. I guess I should also include the little bit of character development regarding Sayuri. If you still watch this series, I would suggest you skip this episode and save yourself 20 minutes. I for one would love to get that 20 minutes of my life back.

Here we have the coveted swimsuit and beach episode that is an expected scenario for this type of series. At first it was nice to see Tsukasa finally get some to spend some time with Riku away from all the usual distractions. Of course that could only last so long until they run into incidents that prevent them from continuing their fun. Being a Tsukasa fan, the events made things more disappointing rather than satisfying. Riku is as clueless as ever which doesn’t help the situation whatsoever. Although on the whole I wish they could have done a better job with this episode, there were some parts I did enjoy. The end of the episode did help reconfirm Tsukasa’s feelings for Riku. Since her feeling hasn’t wavered since the beginning, I’m inclined to root for her until the end.

I found this episode to be marginally better than the last few episodes. We get to see some character development for all 3 of the lead females. It’s unquestionable how Mina and Tsukasa feel about Riku right now. As for Sayuri, however, her feelings aren’t so clear-cut. Based on what they’ve shown us thus far, her feelings could go either way right now. Riku managed to partly redeem himself in this episode in my opinion. He still has a long way to go, but he definitely moved a step in the right direction. The art wasn’t consistent all the way through, but overall it was visually pleasing. The character designs for the series is one of its defining features so when the art gets sloppy it really makes the episode much more difficult to enjoy.

The more I watch the series the more I start to see Riku become less likeable as a character. He’s a pushover and indecisive at the same time. For now we see him treat Tsukasa, Mina, and Sayuri pretty much equally, but if this keeps up he will end up hurting them. In this episode we begin to see the development of a negative consequence due to his kindness. I guess they only had limited options to work with if they are going to prolong the series to 26 episodes. As much as I like Tsukasa, it’s hard to continue rooting for her when she’s acting more like a child with each episode. At least with the events that occurred in this episode, the next episode should be a lot more entertaining.

This episode sheds some light on the mysteries regarding Inukai Kouya. They hinted at the notion that Inukai may not be such a bad guy afterall. The episode pretty much sets out to confirm it. It was nice that they spent a good portion of the episode on Aikawa Momo, but it doesn’t appear as if she will be a recurring character. At least there are no signs she will play much of a role after this episode. Although this episode was enjoyable by itself, I thought it was a bit unfortunate that neither Tsukasa, Mina, nor Sayuri had much of a role in it. If this was only a 12 or 13 episode series I would have seen this episode as a waste of valuable time. Since this series is 26 episodes a few episodes like this one won’t hurt the series.

Since two of the three lead females already had episodes devoted to them, it was only natural for them to focus one episode on the remaining character. At the present time Sayuri is the type of character as expected. I guess she’s likeable, but hardly interesting for the time being. I thought the comedy in this episode was poorly executed. They tried too hard to make it funny, making it almost boring to watch. To top it off, the artists butchered Tsukasa in this episode. She only had a few lines, but it was difficult to watch her scenes because of the surprisingly subpar art. Suffice it to say, this was a pretty disappointing episode overall. The moderate amount of character development was the only part I found to be worth watching.

I need to stop guessing what the future episodes are going to be about based on the previews. I assumed this episode was going to be focused on Mina. Up to a certain point I guess I wasn’t too far off since the latter part of the episode did revolve around her. From the beginning I thought they were going to get right into Mina’s story, but then all of a sudden they went off on a tangent for more than half of the episode. Mina turned out to be quite a different character than I had anticipated. I definately think Mina is more likeable now that we have a better understanding of her. As we learn more about the characters they’re all becoming more interesting. They practically left Tsukasa out of this episode though, which I found to be a bit unfortunate. Personally I think the series would be a lot better if they focused less on the comedy and start getting into the drama.

Something that surprised me was the drop in consistency of the art in this episode. Although there were only a few scenes that were affected, it was still pretty noticeable. If this becomes more and more common throughout the series then there’s no doubt it will lower the overall enjoyment of the series. As expected, Tsukasa played a much bigger role than in the previous episode. We get a better idea of what her personality is like, but we’re still far from really understanding her. The main question at hand is what Riku is going to do about this “forced” relationship between him and Tsukasa. He hasn’t shown any real interest in her relative to someone like Sayuri, yet he doesn’t appear to be trying hard enough to get Tsukasa to listen. I’m beginning to see some resemblance between him and Manaka from “Ichigo 100%”; both of whom are extremely indecisive. With the focus switching to Mina in the next episode, it may be a while longer before Riku does anything about his situation.

I thought Tsukasa would have a bigger part in this episode. The majority of it once again revolved around Riku. It wasn’t a bad thing since we did get to learn about some of the other characters in the process. I was just a little disappointed that not more time was spent on Tsukasa. At least it looks like they’ll make up for it in the next episode. The story has started to move in a definate direction now. With three heroines in the series it’s just a matter of time before trouble involving the main characters’ relationships will evoke drama. Based on the very limited knowledge I have regarding the three heroines, I’m guessing I will most likely end up rooting for Tsukasa or Sayuri. Things could definately change of course, once we get a better understanding of Sayuri, Tsukasa, and Mina. What I do know for sure is sooner or later I will favour one character more than the other two.