C3-bu ep5 & 6: not above sex appeal

What a hot week it’s been for me. It’s times like this that beach episodes in anime make me jealous. I’m especially jealous this episode, because they start off having so much fun.

Episode 5

Here we see the C3 club take on a friendly team of competitors on an island, I can’t think of a better idea for a field trip. It’s much more exciting than seeing people do the usual frolicking, watermelon breaking and tanning on the beach. To make things even better, they better their team of well-tanned competitors and Yura shows no signs of falling back into her old cowardly self.

That night, everyone celebrates by having a big cookout and formally introducing themselves.  Their competitors are called Team Seto, because they all have the surname of Seto, and as Sonora says, they’re one of the best teams in Kansai.  The girl who takes delight in picking on Yura is named Aoi Seto, the “speed demon” of the west.  And her country side definitely shines through.  She’s definitely a weird one, she almost reminds me of a cross between an Eastern version of Peppermint Patty, and Aisha Clan-Clan from Outlaw Star.

Overall, the night is a lovely and cordial affair involving overeating, teasing, fireworks, bathing outdoors and even a hike.  As everyone begins turning in for the night, one by one her team members take a moment to congratulate her on her great performance that day, taking out three opposing team members.  And Yura excitedly turns in for the night.  I’m sure no ones’ forgotten about Yura’s overactive imagination from the last episode.  And it of course rears its head again this episode.  Yura has a nightmare clearly illustrating her fears of failure and getting abandoned by her friends.  It’s a fear of losing to her old self.  It looks like it will take more than a little praise and success to push back her fears.  And that sort of thing should be fine.  It should.

The next morning, things seem a little weird.  As the girls get up and start their morning routines, their flag, nor Team Seto are anywhere to be found.  Sonora appears to be the only one not wondering about this.  When they ask her about the flag, she tells them not to worry because she’s furnished a replacement.  A replacement?!  It appears the club’s flag was burnt, accident or not, and Sonora has replaced it with some of the girls’… swimsuits.  Unfortunately, it seems Team Seto was just as absent minded and burned their flag, too.  (What were these girls drinking last night?  Are they all just idiots?!)

This lack of intelligence by the girls leads to a change in the rules towards a game of Center Flag capture, where the teams compete over bringing a single  left in the middle of the battlefield back to their respective home base.  Things are spiced up even more since Karila and Honoka are both left wearing scandalous tops for the battle.

As the battle gets started, Yura seems more focused and intense then ever.  She’s definitely obsessed with winning, and just by the look on Sonora’s face, I can tell that she doesn’t like her attitude.  Regardless, there’s no time for a lecture, only planning and action!  Only airsoft!

The battle is frenetic and heated.  Team Seto had a well thought out strategy of using speed and deception to keep the C3 club off balance.  As Aoi eventually made her way to the flag, and then captured it at lightning speed.  She was protected by teammates as they orbited around their opponents, shielding her as she was forced to slowly march her way back to their home base.  Eventually though, the C3 club was able to see through their strategy with lots of help from Yura.  Though Sonora notices that she’s being hyper aggressive, and not watching her surroundings at all.  In the end though, it’s Yura’s heroics and leadership that actually save the day – and the swimsuits!  But looking at Sonora’s face in their victory pic, something’s not right.  Everyone has a smile on their face except her.  She’s just staring at Yura.

End of Episode.

Episode 6

Our next episode starts off on a bit of a sour note, but it is a good excuse to get things done in an episode besides shooting people black and blue.

It seems the club’s bad habits have slammed right into the brick wall known as “reality”.  All their cakes and sweets and tea, combined with the usual overhead for trips and supplies has left them near bankrupt except for the funds saved away for a big 24 hour long tournament scheduled soon.  The big problem isn’t just the snacks and tea though.  There’s a fair coming up in a week, and the tourney has left them no money to participate in that either!  Things are incredibly desperate (for a high school club full of spoiled rich girls), but Sonora comes up with an idea.  Well, it’s less of an idea and more of a gamble in my opinion.  She tells the club that they’re going to take the funds for the tourney and apply them towards some attraction at the fair that will make them money so they can still go on the trip, but still participate in the fair.  Honoka, the club’s resident accountant is none to kind to the idea, but Sonora just puts her in a choke hold and all resistance is quelled.  Man, I’d hate to see what Sonora would do with real power…

Like I said before, Sonora’s plan is just a gamble in my opinion, or a house of cards in Honoka’s words.  There first plan is simple enough, as they plan to have a gold fish catching attraction.  But Rento proving she’s a true Gainax idiot, ruins this by putting a lobster in the tub to keep the fish company.  Hello morbidly obese lobster, goodbye goldfish and money.  The second attempt is to do a haunted house.  Too bad that during set up, the girls mistake the loose lobster scurrying around for a giant cockroach and panic and collapse the attraction.  Congratulations idiots, you just used up all your money and accomplished less than nothing in the process.

All seems lost, until the club starts taking stock of what they have on hand to use, and end up going with the idea of having their own airsoft firing range at the school.  There’s hardly any money  and only three days left, so this last minute idea won’t be easy to pull off.

With plenty of sweat equity and a huge favor cashed in by Sonora, things end up being pulled off without a hitch.  But problems still remain.  There are several much more popular clubs around them at the fair, and they’re getting big attendance through sex appeal.  Meanwhile, the girls are at their booth, cosplaying, serving drinks and giving target practice to a handful of people.  Getting desperate, Honoka gets the idea to nickel and dime their customers for every piece of advice and service.  It gets them some good money, but she realizes that they’ll just scare away customers at this rate.  She decides to resort to the skeeviest of ideas – the Get Wet strategy!  How these girls get away with practically having a wet t-shirt contest on school grounds is beyond me, but it pays off spectacularly.  There’s no doubt they’ll meet their quota now.

During the festivities we get to see that Karila has a twin brother who is part of a opera and airsoft club at his school.  He brings along another bishounen (or is it bishouta?) friend who is just as popular and part of the same clubs.  And Honoka gets  him to crossdress and gather crowds outside their attraction.  The combination is a killer.  Japanese men cannot resist “traps”.

Also, the lost event of the day was a water gun quick draw contest between Sonora and Yura.  This again brings up the weird tension between the two.  As the event begins, Yura uses her amazing imagination (I really do love it) to overcome her self doubts and get psyched for the contest with Sonora.  Unfortunately for Sonora, she’s distracted when a young girl bumps into Rento  and they both fall down, spilling drinks everywhere.  Yura takes advantage of this distraction to win the contest.

At the end of the day, the fair is a resounding success, punctuated by a brilliant fireworks display (that’s two episodes in a row).  Everything would be perfect if the target practice machine Sonora borrowed hadn’t been soaked by the water guns , and the girls didn’t mistake the lobster for a cockroach AGAIN, making them panic and completely ruin the display.

*sigh*

End of episode.

A very interesting pair of episodes.  I see Yura’s competitive nature and desperate desire to change herself as an upcoming issue.  And at this point I don’t imagine that Sonora is jealous of her new found popularity and skill.  My guess is that her hesitance has something to do with her broken past with rin, and that perhaps Yura’s tunnel vision and ruthless demeanor may resemble her ex-friend too much.  And if this is true it may also give insight into why Sonora and Rin had a falling out in the first place.  Perhaps Sonora’s caring nature caused them to lose some important tourney or battle, and Rin couldn’t forgive her for it.  Right now, Yura seems to be focused on winning, while all along it seems that Sonora has been playing to win, but cared most about having fun.  And the battle for Yura’s soul may be what’s at the heart of this show.

Now then, episode five was a fun affair where we got to see plenty of new characters, who may end up being roadblocks later down the line.  But it was a fun, action-packed watch.  And I can’t say that I minded fanservice.  I’ve always been a fan of “full-bodied” anime characters, so I definitely didn’t mind Honoka’s leaf swimsuit top.

Getting on to episode six, the episode really made me think that the show perfected the K-On! formula in its execution.  While by extension many modern shows including K-ON! can be linked to the Haruhi franchise and its mega success, I think C3-bu is really focusing on how to make a show like K-ON!, not only again, but different and more interesting.  While K-ON! was focused on situational goals and gags, C3-bu has shown itself to be more dedicated to common, overarching threads and themes.  Yura’s constant battle with her old self, and her lack of confidence; the theme of fun versus competition; Sonora’s past and her Bushido code, matching up or against the recreational nature of the show.  This show about girls having fun together being in high school and playing airsoft is much deeper than its surface would lead you to believe.  So far this season, C3-bu isn’t my favorite comedy, or nor the best one, but it’s showing itself to be a front runner for one of the highest quality overall anime.  Surprising, huh?

Further Reading:

• Episodes 3 & 4