While walking to school with Nobunaga, Yuuto bumps into the pink haired girl yet again, only this time she’s wearing his school’s uniform. The new transfer student formally introduces herself in class as Shiina Amamiya and is an instant hit with the entire class, particularly the guys.

Shiina becomes ecstatic when she finally meets Haruka face to face, and Yuuto learns that Haruka is the top ranked piano player in the world. Yukari-sensei announces that the school swim meet is coming up and everyone needs to participate in an event. Shiina agrees to help with the girl’s relay race but doesn’t know how to swim, so Yuuto and Haruka agree to help her practice.

Yuuto and Haruka help Shiina with her swimming form but things get hectic when Yukari-sensei, Ruko, Mika, Hazuki, and Nanami join in on the fun. Mika, Hazuki, and Nanami don’t approve of Yuuto getting too close to Shiina but Haruka is oblivious to the whole situation. The day of the swim meet, Shiina does well until her leg cramps during her race. Yuuto rescues her and she is taken to the infirmary room, where he tells her that what really matters is that she gave it her best. After the swim meet is over, Yuuto and Haruka continue planning for Comiket and have their own heart to heart chat.

Thoughts:
Hooray for obligatory summer pool episode with plenty of cheesecake. Summer is all about swimsuits and fanservice. This Shiina-centric episode ushers in the love triangle that we all saw coming. No romance-comedy would be complete without a love triangle, because it’s a staple for easy story development. I think Shiina is an interesting character; infinitely more so than Haruka who is a Mary Sue character in every sense of the word. In this type of show, I tend to like the side characters more than the main girl. I like Mika and Shiina better than Haruka, who while cute doesn’t stand out too much compared to her competition. Even sexual harassment teacher (Yukari-sensei) is more interesting and she hasn’t had much screen time. I still like Haruka but she’s in a distant third place for me.

Haruka and Shiina are in the running for Yuuto with Haruka well in the lead due to her status as the main heroine. I guess we can throw Mika and Yukari-sensei into the mix as joke choices too. Four females qualifies as a small harem, so thus Yuuto has a harem of girls. Unlike so many male leads in this genre, at least Yuuto has a spine even if he’s still afraid of topless girls. So next episode should be Comiket. Looking forward to it.

Series panty shot count
Mika: 5
Shiina: 3
Haruka: 1
Yuuto: 0

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 11:43 am and is filed under Anime, Haruka Nogizaka's Secret.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.