Yuiga is a student who is aiming for a scholarship because he comes from a poor family. His school gives him a condition: he can have a recommendation for a scholarship if he tutors his two beautiful classmates to help them get into the schools of their choice. Ogata may be a science genius and Furuhashi a literature prodigy — but Ogata is aiming for a liberal arts school and Furuhashi is aiming for a science school. And they’re both clueless outside their fields of expertise. – ANN
Streaming: Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu
Episodes: TBA
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: Yuiga isn’t the best student, but he studies hard and has high aspirations. When his principal offers a scholarship recommendation in exchange for Yuiga’s help tutoring some fellow students, Yuiga jumps at the chance. When he discovers that these students are none other than Ogata, a mathematical genius, and Furuhashi, an eloquent writer, he’s puzzled.
As it turns out, while the two have their talents, their passions lie within the subjects that they find more challenging. Yuiga invests a week in teaching them, but when their scores don’t improve he tries to call it quits. It’s only after learning each girl’s reasoning for trying to go outside their comfort zone that Yuiga recalls his father’s wisdom regarding learning and talent.
Impressions: When I was in 11th grade, a friend of mine told the story of how her mother worked to keep her out of our school’s gifted and talented program. My friend’s good grades, according to her mother, weren’t the result of gifts, but of hard work and a willingness to study. As someone who was urged to enroll in honors and gifted classes from a young age, my friend’s words made a lot of sense to me. Being labeled as “gifted” honestly becomes more of a curse, because it assumes success is due to talent; when that success starts to fade, it’s so tied-up with one’s self-worth that the result is an immense blow to one’s self-esteem.
Protagonist Yuiga’s father gave him a great gift in that he emphasized the value inherent in failure. Performing poorly on a test isn’t some black mark on one’s character, but instead an opportunity to work hard and fill the blank spots of one’s knowledge. That’s a message that I would have loved to have heard when I was struggling in school and suddenly faced with the prospect (and frequent reality) of failure. Even 20+ years later I’m still dealing with the emotional aftermath of high school’s many missed opportunities, and I often wonder what a caring change in perspective could have done to set me on the correct path.
Though all signs point toward this series becoming a fairly standard harem outing, it’s this surprising core of wisdom and humanity that makes at least this first episode into something entertaining. There’s also some effort put into humanizing the young women Yuiga’s been tasked with teaching; while decent characterization is something that ought to be baseline in stories dealing with relationships, I’m sure we can all name examples where character tropes and titillation win out over the more difficult (though ultimately more fulfilling) prospect of allowing the heroines to show their appeal through actual personality.
I think Ogata and Furuhashi express many of the frustrations that people in their shoes experience. Because they’re beautiful and smart it seems as though their road to success is assured. If they only chose to stick with the subjects in which their innate talents manifest, they’d be able to lead an easy life. The problem is that sometimes what you’re good at isn’t what you’re passionate about, and a life without challenges is a boring one. I’ve always been kind of a mediocre writer, but it’s something that I love to do, so that in itself allows me to keep plugging away and developing my skills. It’s also a way to prove to myself that I have the ability to persevere, especially when there are individuals out there who’d rather I would quit in frustration. A victory that comes as the result of hard work tastes sweeter than one which is bestowed as if by default.
The episode’s missteps unfortunately manifest in the form of low expectations fulfilled. Yuiga is a decent protagonist for this sort of story; I’ve already spent some time talking about his strengths and studiousness. But like so many other teenage boys in anime, merely being in close proximity to the two girls we meet is enough to make him flustered. The girls’ actions are clearly platonic – Furuhashi starts to fall asleep on Yuiga’s shoulder, and Ogata’s chest brushes Yuiga’s arm when she leans in to ask a question. These are pretty innocent actions that are overblown in the way that they’re framed and through Yuiga’s blushing, embarrassed reactions. While, judging from the next episode preview, a small amount of lewd content might be a regular staple going forward, the series certainly doesn’t need it.
That might be the most ironic thing about this episode – it spends a lot of time talking about how taking the easy way out is unfulfilling, and yet it doesn’t seem to have enough confidence in its narrative to avoid falling into trope-y “episode 1” pitfalls. It’s not the worst offender I’ve ever encountered, and in fact its “service” elements are pretty darned tame. But they stick out as very “easy” and incredibly unnecessary.
A friend of mine mentioned before the Spring anime season began that he was positive people would mistake this series for a rip-off of The Quintessential Quintuplets due to its surface-level plot similarities. I’m happy to see that his fears haven’t really come to pass. This opening episode is less sarcastic and arguably has more heart. I would love to see a series like this – one with a decidedly decent moral center – rely less on accidental boob-touches and near-upskirt camera shots and instead reach outside its comfort zone a little bit. I think the end result would be more satisfying for everyone.
Pros: The episode introduces a lot of wisdom surrounding giftedness and the value of hard work and failure.
Cons: Occasionally falls back into the realm of annoying harem tropes.
Grade: C+