"In the school, the three guys met. Their relation had been changed in the season, and turned into three love stories."The board at the school gate reads "10th Sakakino Academy Entrance Ceremony". This fellow is Itou Makoto. It's his first day of school and he had noticed a girl from the next class. The girl reads books on the train. He has started to become interested in her, but he would not talk to her. Being able to gaze at the girl, Katsura Kotonoha, from afar, Makoto claims that it’ll make his life better. “Do you know? About the cellphone charm?” “Yeah! If you keep a photo of the person you like on your cellphone and nobody finds out, your love will be realized!” (kristalyamaki: What a lame trend. “...and if nobody finds out, your love will be realized?” my ass.)In school, Makoto was about to delete the photo of Katsura which he had taken in the train, but how unforturnately, the person who sits next to Makoto in class who also happens to be a girl, found out about it and started to become interested. “So, you like class four’s Katsura-san?” the girl directly asked. Makoto froze. “You saw it?” he asked as the girl grinned widely, “I saw it.”As class started... “Hey Saionji, listen to this!” Makoto whispered. “We’re in the middle of class.” The girl earlier straightforwardly said. “Don’t tell anyone about this!” Makoto’s voice became rough, still whispering. “Why?” she asked. “No matter what!” Makoto lifted his voice. It was then the teacher’s attention was caught and had asked whether there’s something. Makoto replied “no” as the teacher continued his lesson. Saionji then started to write messages on her exercise book, passing it to Makoto. She wrote ‘That was the good charm, right?’ In return, Makoto claimed that it was not and the photo was taken by accident. Saionji refused to believe that. ‘You don’t have to hide it. She IS cute!’ wrote Saionji. ‘Leave me alone already!’ Makoto wrote in return. Meanwhile, another mysterious girl with a ribbon was spying on the two in a seat from a few rows ahead of them...We were introduced with another of Makoto’s friend, and this time, a male who happens to be someone rough with the name of Taisuke. Holding a mop, he made his entry into the scene giving Makoto a good hit on the back with it. He seems rather friendly with Makoto. However, Taisuke, with his strong voice of surprise, said that he didn’t know Makoto would get along well with Saionji. Makoto retorted, saying that it was the girl who started to talk to him first. Taisuke made a wild assumption that something’s going on between the two of them, then said that Saionji’s a pretty popular girl... but Makoto told him that his only thought of her is that she’s a noisy girl and nothing else. Makoto then asked Taisuke whether he had fallen for her instead and the answer that came out from his mouth was, “cute girls, I like them all! Makoto, you’re being unfair!” Makoto continued to defend himself by saying that he’s becoming nothing with the girl, but Taisuke simply brushed of whatever Makoto said as he said, “you can say that right now, but soon you’ll leave us behind and climb the stairs of adulthood...”As the two were still there arguing about Saionji, the girl herself appeared in front of them and asked Makoto to follow her as she had something to tell her. Taisuke gave Makoto a thumbs up as Makoto insisted that he’s misunderstanding. Saionji continued to blush.Saionji brought Makoto up to the roof of the school. Why the roof of the school and not any place else? It seems that she has the key to the roof. Makoto was wondering where she obtained the key as she told him that she is the head of the Astronomy Club of the school. Makoto was surprised as Saionji is only a first-year student but she told him that the club was disbanded a long time ago and she revived it. Sounds familiar, right? Yup, Tohru from the anime Air, I suppose? Makoto asked, since she’s not going to do any space observation, won’t it be meaningless? But she replied, saying that it would be exciting to have a secret base. Makoto wasn’t impressed with the answer she gave her as he wasn’t having any fun at all and demanded her to go directly into the detail as to why she had called him up there.Playing around, Saionji took a while to think. Then holding up her cellphone with a photo in it, she cheerfully made her announcement: She had became friends with Katsura! She took the opportunity she had in the gym where the two classes (third class and fourth class) are having PE together. Katsura has a weak body and as Saionji was having some sickness (as she claimed), they rested together and ended up being friends. “I did it all for you, since I peeked at your cellphone...” Saionji said. Saionji then said that she talked to her a lot and started to understand her. She had even taken down Katsura’s phone number and e-mail address and would call her that night, and would make a report to Makoto. Makoto was really grateful, but started to wonder why she would go so far for him. Saionji’s excuse was that as a representative of the girls, having heard rumours that he, a popular boy among the girls, has someone he likes, she couldn’t ignore it. Slowly, Makoto noticed that Saionji might have broken the promise to keep the secret and started to get heated. He grabbed the girl on the shoulder and pushed her to the fence. “You look scary, Makoto... don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone,” she finally said. Makoto was relieved as she demanded him to let her go. “If someone sees us, it’ll be very bad.”Saionji promised to help him out. “Leave this to Sekai,” she said but Makoto told her that he hadn’t made up his mind, but she threatened him that she’ll spill the beans if he wouldn’t let her. We learnt that Saionji’s last name was ‘Sekai’ as in world ‘sekai’. Saionji Sekai. I’ll refer to her as Sekai hereon.After school, Sekai left school with another classmate from her class. Her name was Setsuna, the ribbon girl from before. Nothing much is known about her so far. So much for an introduction of a mysterious girl. The next day in school, they continued the exercise book messaging... I’ll skip the weeshy-wooshy talk. Most importantly, Sekai had invited Katsura for lunch at the roof of the school together with them. Makoto became all nervous and wanted to skip as he wasn’t ready. Sekai told him that they talked over the phone about it a night earlier and that was how it became. It seems that she doesn’t have a boyfriend yet, however she does have someone she likes. Makoto told himself that he might be satisfied with the information alone, but Sekai went ahead and dragged him up the stairs to the roof. Makoto made a rather awkward entry as he was pushed in by Sekai. The moment he saw Katsura he picked himself up as he stood up straight. The whole introduction was awkward as well – the Makoto and Katsura introduced themselves rather formally as if it’s a marriage interview. So, the three of them sat on a bench as they have lunch together. They started with Katsura’s homemade sandwich. But as expected from some bookworm (like Nerine from Shuffle!), her cooking isn’t that nice, but hey, they’re only sandwiches! Well, I guess I can call this ‘the power of love’ as Makoto had forced himself to finish the sandwiches even though they’re bad. Fortunately, Katsura had prepared some tea for him to clench his throat. Sekai took the opportunity to leave, leaving the two together. The two chatted...The next day at the train station, Makoto confessed to Katsura. Later on during PE, Katsura told Sekai about the confession she had received from Makoto. Katsura had known about it since Makoto had told her a day earlier that he’ll be confessing. But what she hadn’t expected was that Katsura gave him her okay. Sekai was still wondering about the person Katsura had said earlier, the person which she is interested in, and it was then Katsura told her that it was Makoto. Sekai said that it was then a mutual love. Katsura then suddenly thanked her – it was her who had brought them together. Sekai gave Katsura her good luck, but inside her, Sekai happened to be crushed as if her plan had failed miserably. After school, Makoto was waiting for Katsura at the train station when Sekai arrived. It seems that she’s also boarding the train on the same line. Makoto again asked why she would do so much for him... just because she had peeped at his cellphone, normally other people wouldn’t do so much, he thought. Sekai’s answer was because it was fun, being able to control other people’s love with her own hand. Makoto felt that he owed her a huge debt as Sekai added that the debt was enormous that he would never be able to pay it back in a lifetime. Makoto then promised that he would definitely pay her back. Sekai started to wonder what she would ask for. Makoto told her to think about it, but in a split second, Sekai planted her lips on Makoto’s. “Just this is fine,” she said as she boarded the train. Makoto was left puzzled and shocked while Sekai’s mood seemed to have sunk low, really low.That’s it for the first episode. From what I can see, this anime series has a rather speedy plot development, from getting to know the main characters as well as getting to know their style, characteristics and what role do they play. The introduction is simple and indirect where Sekai was introduced as a hyperactive, noisy but pretty high school girl where we also realised that she is also able to hide her true feelings easily. Makoto (Reminds me to Sawatari Makoto of Kanon, but hey, isn’t that a girl?) is a guy who would be happy living a life as normal as possible, gazing at the girl he likes from afar while maintaining his coolness. However, he seems to be a little clumsy. Meanwhile Katsura, or should I address her as Kotonoha, is a girl ala Honoka from Suzuka, cute and shy with long, silky black hair. Plus, she’s a bookworm without spectacles (unlike Yuki). And talking about black hair, I noticed that every character in this anime has black hair, unlike other animes! That’s a change for one! Oh and to those pantsu lovers, there are many short pantsu flashing scenes in this anime series, so be sure to watch. (FYI, Katsura’s pantsu’s white in colour while Sekai’s is blue. :P)More character and plot development to be expected it seems. There are many unintroduced side characters to be introduced in the following episodes. We’ll see how it goes.
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