Seeing as the Sports Festival arc concluded with Episode 6, we knew episode 7 was about to introduce a new arc. What we didn’t know was that it would also introduce romance and a new threat towards Ayanokoji. We discuss below.
Contents
Plot Summary
Episode 7 begins with Horikita’s brother, the student council president, concluding his resignation speech. We also learn the name of the new student council president: Nagumo Miyabi (a student from Class 2-A). He expresses his desire to turn the school into a meritocracy. For those who may not know what that means, a meritocracy is precisely how it sounds—a system based on merit. Individuals’ standings are determined by their ability. I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover but this guy just looks like he’s going to cause trouble.
The episode continues with Katsuragi (a student from Class A) complimenting Ayanokoji on his performance at the Sports festival. Furthermore, he implores Ayanokoji to warn Horikita away from engaging with Ryuen. It seems the whole school realizes how dangerous and manipulative Ryuen is.
Shortly afterwards, Ayanokoji receives a love confession from Satō Maya. If you don’t remember her don’t worry, cause neighter did I. Apparently, Ayanokoji’s performance at the Sports Festival won him some points with the ladies but it doesn’t seem like Karuizawa is very happy about that. Turns out she was behind the corner listening to the whole thing.
As the episode continues, the students learn the results of their midterm assessments. Once again, Horikita achieved the highest score in the class. Also, the class as a whole seems to be getting in the groove of things. This time there was much less fuss and nobody scored low enough to be expelled. Most importantly, we learn what the next special test (which will serve as the class’ finals) will be. The test goes by the name “Paper Shuffle.” We have the full rules of the latest test outlined below. We also learn that there will be another mini-test before the special test. Luckily, the mini-test won’t penalize the students for doing poorly. It’s purpose is to assess the academic ability of the students and apparently it will play a crucial role for the upcoming Paper Shuffle test.
Quickly after the Paper Shuffle test is explained, Horikita comes up with a plan to manipulate the system. She orders Ayanokoji to gather Hirata and the rest of the class. As he’s doing that, Karuizawa contacts him and asks him about Sato asking him out. They’re interrupted by the meeting to discuss the mini-test. As they’re discussing where they will hold said Karuizawa notedly includes the honorific when talking about Hirata. Before she got involved with Ayanokoji she always dropped the honorific and referred to Hirata by his first name. They eventually decide they’ll hold the meeting at a cafe.
As they’re talking Kushida asks if she can join them. Horikita obliges but tells the group to go on ahead as her and Ayanokoji go to retrieve her bag. While retrieving her bag, she tells Ayanokoji about an incident that occurred with Kushida during middle school. During her explanation, Horikita also explains that she is most likely seen as a target by Kushida. As a result, Ayanokoji suggests that they attempt to get Kushida expelled from the school. That way she will no longer pose a problem for either of them. However, Horikita rejects this proposal. She still thinks she can flip Kushida into an ally.
As Class D plots, it was obvious that Ryuen wouldn’t sit idlely by. He’s plotting to find out how Class D has been seeing so much success. However, it doesn’t seem like he’s coming to the right conclusion. He believes someone in Class C is the mastermind behind their manaveuring. Even so, we do know that someone in Class C has been betraying them. It turns out that traitor was Manabe. Ryuen violently slams her head into a desk before asking her who the true mastermind is. If you remember who Manabe is then you know she is one of the three girls who were bullying Karuizawa. Ayanokoji used a video of them bullying Karuizawa in order to manipulate them into betraying Class C. Now, as Ryuen finds out that only Karuizawa and Ayanokoji witnessed the bullying, he becomes suspicious of Ayanokoji.
Ryuen decides to contact Kushida in order to find out if Ayanokoji is really the mastermind behind the rise of Class D. Returning to Class C, the group is discussing their plans for the mini-test. Horikita has figured out that the test is designed to create balanced pairs that group together the worst and best performers. Horikita devises a strategy to create the optimal pairings which will benefit Class D. The students also have to decide which class they will target as their opponents. They quickly come to the conclusion that Class C is their best bet because Class A and Class B are filled with high performing students.
Later that night, Karuizawa calls Ayanokoji. She’s desperate to know what he said to Sato when she confessed her feelings towards him. In reality, it seems like she just wanted to make sure Ayanokoji didn’t have any feelings towards Sato. Little does she know, Ayanokoji doesn’t seem to have very many feelings at all. The next day, Horikita made her proposal to the class and they quickly agreed. Ayanokoji ended up getting paired with Sato. While it’s very rare that Ayanokoji does something unintentionally, it doesn’t seem like he paired up with her on purpose.
Analysis
Rules of the Paper Shuffle Special test
- Everyone in the class will compete in teams of 2
- The pairs are determined by the results of the mini-test
- If a pair’s combined points fall below 60, both individuals will be expelled
- If a pair falls below a certain amount of points (normally around 700) across all 8 subjects, both individuals will be expelled.
- Furthur Explainer: 700 points across 8 subjects means a pair would need to average roughly 44 points for each subject to avoid expulsion.
- The Questions for the Paper Shuffle Special Test will be crafted by the students. The rules are as follows:
- Students from each class will make questions.
- Those questions will be answered by students from one of the other three classes.
- A class will never answer questions created by their own class.
- When a class creates their questions, they can request which class they desire to answer them. If there is a duplicate request, a random lottery will decide which questions the class answers.
- Once a class is matched up against another class they both exchange questions. Whichever class answers more correctly will be able to steal 50 class points from the other.
- The teachers will scrutinize the questions to make sure there are no questions that have no answer.
The Kushida Middle School Incident
The Kushida middle school event goes as follows: as Horikita’s middle school approached their graduation, one of the classrooms was torn apart and essentially trashed. Quickly, a rumor spread around the middle school that a single female student had caused all of the destruction. Horikita believes that student was Kushida however she questions how a single student could be capable of destroying an entire classroom. Ayanokoji answers this by revealing that Kushida most likely wields a weapon with equal potency to violence.
Does Karuizawa Like Ayanokoji?
It seems very clear after this episode that Karuizawa has romantic feelings for Ayanokoji and here’s why: she seems to be stalking him and becomes angry when Sato approaches him. Once he comes around, she begins to talk more formally with Hirata. Karuizawa contacts Ayanokoji late at night simply to ensure he isn’t pursuing any other girls. Finally, she becomes angry when Ayanokoji is paired up with Sato for the Paper Shuffle special test. If you watch the episode, you’ll notice multiple times where Karuizawa makes angry faces. They’re nearly all a result of Ayanokoji’s interactions with other females. Karuizawa clearly has a crush on him.
Animation quality this episode
Honestly something looked a little off this episode. I don’t know if it was just me, but the faces of Ayanokoji and Horikita looked different than usual from certain angles. I might be off basis, but everything just looked a tiny bit off.
