It doesn’t look good for Mashiro here.
This is really the story of a group of kids putting on facades and a way of once again making jokes about the differences between country and city folk for not much of a reason. This is the story of a young girl engaged to be married and only finding out about it on her 16th birthday. That means this is clearly going to end with her slowly falling for the guy who has no presence.
I was a little surprised at how lacking in perversion this show was. It feels kind of like a spiritual successor to Non Non Biyori and Kiniro Mosaic in that it really focuses on a group of girls doing different things in a school setting with Mashiro playing the young girl trying to act like an adult.
There are a few contrivances you have to take into account for this series to work as well. First, there’s the deceased grandfather having absolute power even beyond the grave. He arranged all of this after all. Then, there’s the fact that the characters have to accept this new change in status without much of a fight. Check. Finally, Mashiro ends up in the same class because plot.
Hakuya is more of a character development robot than an actual character now.
I ended up liking the first episode despite these shortcomings. It’s really innocent stuff that isn’t going to be groundbreaking. While you can accuse me of suffering from Stockholm Syndrome for the fact I can’t drop anything the rest of the season (dumb New Year’s Resolutions are dumb), I think this is one of the better shows so far. Hakuya still needs to improve as a character beyond having to treat Kobeni as his wife already while not really acknowledging her feelings. Benio’s act at school and contrasting actions toward Mashiro at home is going to wear thin quickly as well.
