Mikagura School Suite

Episode 9

When it comes to organizing a new school club, Eruna and Otone aren't exactly what you'd call a dream team. Otone alternates between being terminally shy and slightly terrifying, and Eruna is, well, Eruna. So it doesn't come as much of a surprise that they have a tough time recruiting new members. Heck, they can't even decide on a name for their club.

That vaguely defined club is the driving force behind this episode, as Eruna and Otone try to lure in a third member and earn official recognition from the school. They come up with some interesting (if not terribly effective) ways of getting the word out, including sending the newspaper club fake stories and sneaking into the background of the resulting video reports. They somehow manage to get a few applicants, but Otone scares the new kids away with her creepy snake ribbons. Eruna faces off against the newspaper club president in order to secure a meeting room, and Bimii is drafted into standing in as the necessary third member for the time being. Through fair means or foul, the “I'll Figure It Out Later Club” is finally approved by the administration.

This episode isn't the funniest we've seen from Mikagura School Suite, but at least it manages to stay entertaining from start to finish. While I'd hate to be stuck on a group project with Eruna and Otone, it's fun to watch them fail spectacularly at recruiting new members. Even in their most desperate hour, Eruna would much rather see the club go up in smoke than let Shigure join. Otone's anxiety over meeting new people is dull, predictable, and mercifully short-lived. As far as this show is concerned, there's no problem that Eruna can't unintentionally solve through her contagious optimism.

In visual terms, the battle against the newspaper club president is unimpressive at best. Her ability to recite embarrassing facts about her opponent sounds good on paper, but it's presented without any sense of style or drama. There are no explosions of light and color, no giant words flying across the screen, and no clever visualizations of Eruna taking damage from the scandalous headlines. At the end of the day, we're just watching two people have a conversation in a hallway. I'm not sure it even qualifies as an action scene, but at least the writing is clever. Having the normally shameless Eruna come face to face with embarrassing moments from her past is a good idea and a natural source of comedy. If the animation department hadn't taken a snooze on it, this could have been a neat little sequence.

The rivalry between Seisa and Otone is hinted at again this week, but it hasn't actually amounted to anything yet. The closest the show's gotten to doing something with this storyline is to imply that they're both worried about losing Eruna's affections to someone with more charisma. That would be a more compelling idea if it weren't already obvious that Eruna has enough energy to be best friends with every human being and talking cat in school. In all likelihood, this conflict will consist of a few harsh words followed by a humorous and slightly sappy reconciliation. If Seisa doesn't become the club's third official member, I'll eat my hat.

This episode is Mikagura School Suite in a nutshell: a pleasant little diversion with big ideas and a small budget. The story unfolds in a predictable way, but it's enjoyable enough in the moment that I'm content to give it half an hour of my time every week. When all is said and done, I really just want to see what Eruna's going to do now that she actually has her own club.

Rating: B-

Mikagura School Suite is currently streaming on Funimation.

Paul Jensen is a freelance writer and editor. You can follow more of his anime-related ramblings on Twitter.