Manabi Straight – ep 08

The cancellation of the school fair is official announced. Of course Manabi doesn’t take things lying down and starts organising a fight back in return. Things get tricky though, when it’s revealed that Aikoh’s Superintendent is manabi’s brother’s new gf.

It’s not easy being the teacher who supervises the student council.

Poor Shimoji… tortured even though the teachers themselves didn’t know about the school merger until the official announcement was made. The principal talks to the student council though, blaming herself for not being more active in improving the school, dwelling on traditional stuff instead. On an ending note, she also mentions how sad she is, for she was a student council president previously as well. Manabi calls Takako for help, but Takako explains that she has already tried persuading her superintendent earlier already.

 

Manabi being manabi, starts talks of revolution and rebellion. she gives a moving speech just like any revolutionary fighter would. Until she gets whacked on the head by mei. Mei thus organises an out all plan to bring the student body to their side, petitions and all, determined not to let what they have been doing go to a waste.

It starts well at first, even as they had fun photocopying their own faces in the photocopying machine. But by the next day… their audience has disappeared. Even mutsuki’s friend accidentally angers her saying that it’s good that the school fair has been cancelled, for the softball team needs her. Everybody says that there are still fun stuff around town, so it doesn’t matter too much that the school fair is cancelled, even though they looked forward to it.

 

Manabi returns home to find that her brother is now attached. She is suprised that the new gf knows her name too! Until she introduces herself Aikoh’s superintendent. Manabi promptly leaves home and chooses to stay with Mika. Over dinner, Manabi’s brother explains to his gf that Manabi has been moving around alot, and explains that school is very important to manabi. Meanwhile, Manabi is also upset that the superintendent did not mention anything about the school festival to her brother. But Mika gently explains to her that this are two different matters.

 Thanks to the talk over dinner with the brother, the superintendent does an about turn and agrees to a meeting with Manabi. She starts off all friendly and teasing about the brother, causing Manabi to turn violent. After lots of debate, the superintendent finally says that the rest of the school body are not too concerned, and that it’s only the council that wants to hold it. Deep down, Manabi knows that is true too.

 But she gives the council a chance though. Get 70% of the school population to sign the petition, and they’ll have their school fair. The fight is now on.

Thoughts

There were quite many good elements in this episode, which made it one of the better episodes.

Manabi’s kick at Shimoji, Seioh’s principal being nice, Manbi’s revolution talk. Oh, and there’s Mei constantly hitting Manabi with a white fan. Chidori of FMP anyone?

And Aikoh’s superintendent being oh so hot. haha. She is voiced by Aya Hisakawa, and is drawn surprisingly pretty. Before this, she was pretty much hidden, and I was kinda expecting some evil queen. Having her as manabi’s future sister in law was another very cute twist as well.