Episode three of Murenase! Seton Gakuen, aka Seton Academy: Join The Pack has landed, and…despite some of the usual issues, it was actually a really quick watch. Let’s talk about it.
Bare Naked Bookends
It’s been one week since we got to see, fan service that’s slightly furry. And this week, we dove into it almost immediately. The story arc that started and ended the episode revolved around student council president Miki. She opened up the episode with a speech about how inter-species relationships must be eradicated, and then immediately sent her team of males to spy on the cooking club.
Miki hates wearing clothes. Not all clothes; she seems perfectly happy in lingerie. Mostly though she hates clothes. Why? Because she’s a naked mole rat. Now, the random stripping was as unnecessary as ever, but…using the naked mole rat angle was a little cleverer than I expected.
Given the setting and the focus on kemonomimi girls, this at least fit within the world. It was still obviously just an excuse to ramp up the fan service, but at least it had some forethought to it. So, I’ll forgive her state of undress for now. I just hope she doesn’t become a focal character, as it’ll grow tiresome fairly quickly if she does.
Harem Pride
The big thing here was that Jin has accidentally gotten a reputation as being a male that is starting an inter-species harem. Ah, those hilarious misunderstandings, right? Anyway, this leads to a pride of lionesses kidnapping him and taking him to King Shishino. Because Lion king. He rules his pride because he’s strong and has a big black mane. But what he really wants is to speak to the impala girl, Shiho. And since in is obviously successful at the whole getting-girls-of-a-different-species-to-like-you thing, he wants advice.
There were some visually amusing moments throughout this arc. The whole thing of Shishino seeing her from afar and falling in love with her, complete with a creepy face that indicates hunger more than love, was pretty fun. His misguided attempts to speak to her via kidnapping and chasing would have felt dodgier if it weren’t for the animal behaviour bent of the series but works in this context.
The story got a happy ending too. After another lion kidnaps Shiho to use as leverage and sets his own male lions on Shishino, a battle broke out. It was once the newcomer said he would eat Shiho that Shishino went Super Saiyan. The fight ended quickly from there. Having had his mane cut during the battle, Shishino’s pride left and he finally got to speak to Shiho. She, uhm, apologized for not being in heat. That was…something. She did say they should start as friends though and we even ended the episode with a shot of them eating lunch together.
This was better than it should have been given the kidnapping, which was a nice surprise.
Cooking Up Some Trouble
Meanwhile, Miki saw footage of the whole romantic tale and decided that Jin must be trying to convert others to his perverse ways. So, she decided to disband the cooking club. Jin refused her summons and she had to go visit him in person. This led to the males offering to lay down their lives when they saw Kurumi coming straight for them.
The funny thing here was that Kurumi didn’t actually look like she was going to eat Miki. She was just kinda being her kitty self. Now, when she caught one of the males, she did start doing the playing-with-your-food bit that cats often do, so they at least seemed like real prey for her. Anyway, Miki escaped, stormed into the cooking club, stripped, and called Jin a pervert. I will admit, that made me chuckle.
More amusing though was when Jin was trying to argue that he isn’t making a harem, and King Shishino turned up to offer him advice on how to run a harem. In the end, Ranka appeared carrying all the males. She had happened across Kurumi and saved them, and on the way, had explained that the cooking club was about friendship. Miki agreed to let it be for now but would be observing.
Again, this was a decent section for me. The jokes landed and the timing of them was great. So, I can’t really complain. Good stuff.
Overall
This episode really surprised me. Given Miki’s preferred clothing style, it should really have bugged me a lot. Yet it didn’t. I liked that they at least had an excuse for it this time. I liked that the episode relied on misunderstandings and timing for single lines.
At the same time though, I can see a potential stumbling block here. There were times that Jin’s reactions put me in mind of Kenji in D-Frag! That’s not a bad thing in itself, I love D-Frag! The issue is that last week, it reminded me more of Magical Sempai. If it keeps reminding me of other shows that I felt did the formula better, that’s going to create a long run of negative comparisons. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but we shall see.
So, those were my thoughts. But what about yourselves? Did you enjoy this episode? Do you agree or disagree with any of my observations? Let me know in the comments below.
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