Literature / Student Council's Discretion

aka: Seitokai No Ichizon

Introducing our Student Council President!

"I am well aware that this Student Council is my harem."

— Ken Sugisaki

At Hekiyou Academy, the Student Council is selected by what amounts to a popularity contest. As such, the Council mostly consists of attractive girls, though there is one man among them - Ken Sugisaki. His lofty, crazy and yet somehow attainable goal? To turn the four girls of the Student Council into his harem.

So begins Student Council's Discretion (Seitokai no Ichizon), a series of Light Novels written by Aoi Sekina and illustrated by Kira Inugami which was published from 2008 to 2012 for 10 volumes. It received an anime adaptation in the fall of 2009 by Studio DEEN. A second season was announced in March of 2011 and confirmed for the fall 2012 season, animated by AIC.

The light novels also have a manga adaptation illustrated by 10mo that ran in Monthly Dragon Age from 2008 to 2013, and a DS game where the player can get a chance to make the harem for Ken themselves.

Crunchyroll is streaming the second season, which can be viewed here for people living in the following areas: North America, Ireland, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and the Netherlands under the name Student Council's Discretion. The first season was originally available, but was later unfortunately pulled due to licensing issues.

For another anime with many similarities, compare and contrast Seitokai Yakuindomo, where the gender roles are reversed, with the girls being the perverted ones, and the guy being the Straight Man.

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This light novel provides examples of:

• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Though in practice, they function more like an elite club.
• Accidental Pervert:
  • Ken ends up with Mafuyu's panties in one episode after she lost them during the school festival somehow.
  • Every game that Elise wants to play with Ken turns out to be very perverted two or three seconds in.
• A-Cup Angst:
  • In one of the anime episodes, Ken calls Kurimu "Pettanko" every time she says "Stamp". Of course he does this to make Kurimu say "Pettanko" instead. It works.
  Kurimu: Stamp.
  Ken: Pettanko.
  Kurimu: Stamp.
  Ken: Pettanko.
  Beat.
  Ken: Stamp.
  Kurimu: Pettanko.
  • Kurimu is also quite jealous of Chizuru's bust size as well.
• A Day in the Limelight: Lilicia gets one in episode 8 of season 2, when she and Ken follow Kurimu and Mafuyu around while they go shopping.
• Aesop Amnesia: Played with: After seeing their own promotional video, the cast promises to actually do their jobs and become better people. One scene later, everything is back to normal, much to Ken's confusion.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Chizuru tends be quiet, snarky and more emotionally distant than the other girls, though it's implied that she's invoking it. Back in middle school she doesn't seem to have acted like this.
• Angry Cheek Puff: In Episode 8, Ken and Elise both pout with puffed cheeks during their Staring Contest before realizing how awkward they're being.
• Antenna Hair: In episode 6, after finding out that the Shiina sisters are transferring to a school on the mainland, Chirizu is playing with Kurimu's ahoge. Kurimu sits up quickly and suddenly has about eight sticking out of various spots on her head.
  Ken: The ahoge multiplied!
• Armor-Piercing Question: Ringo asks Chizuru if she likes Ken in episode 6 of season 2. It's so shocking that every other character just kind of goes blank, and Chizuru is quite uncomfortable, gradually turning red as Ringo continues to state that her brother is Oblivious to Love.
• Art Shift: Happens a couple of times in episode 1 of season 2, when Kurimu is discussing new ideas they should try.
• The Atoner:
  • After Ken's two-timing hurt his stepsister, not only did he not defend himself against his classmates' bullying, he even asked for it.
  • In truth, he didn't two time at all - it was mostly due to his misplaced guilty conscience. His stepsister went into depression when Ken, who she was in love with, started dating his childhood friend. The couple broke up when Ken spent more time taking care of his stepsister. He couldn't make both happy. Each of the girls in the student council saved him during his first year of high school. Joining the student council is his way of showing his gratitude toward them with the belief he can keep everyone happy this time.
• Beach Episode: Does it still count as a beach episode if the cast is in swimsuits the whole time but never leaves the Student Council room?
• Beautiful All Along:
  • So much that when Minatsu let her hair down, Ken didn't recognize her and was completely awe-struck at the beauty of this unknown girl. She was plenty cute already.
  • Minatsu doesn't recognize Mafuyu without her ribbon, despite being sisters.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In episode 1 of season 2, Ken suggests they should add some more girls to the main cast. While they brush it off, that in fact happens when Ken's calls his younger sister in episode 5. She then shows up in the student council office in episode 6.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Mafuyu, of all people, is this. Usually played for comedy, but it also happens in a more serious part of the show: when Ken's bully in junior high school says that Ken was a freak pervert asshole and a two-timing bastard, Mafuyu surprisingly slams said bully in the face with her bag. It gets even more awesome when you realize that all the other members were present, including the Hot-Blooded Tsundere Minatsu, yet the shy Mafuyu who usually stays behind the scenes and is afraid of boys becomes the first one to lose her cool and stick up for Ken.
• Bishie Sparkle: The girls do this in episode 1 of season 2, after complaining about not getting much screentime in the previous episode. Ken lampshades this, wondering why they're sparkling.
• Black Comedy: Chizuru's idea for a play in episode 10. She suggests a boy confessing to his childhood friend, only for her to state she's dating another guy for three days now. After hearing some protests about it, she adds that shortly after the boy leaves the school, he gets hit by some dropped stacks of newspapers above the school entrance and loses his memory. When they tell her that it just makes the story sadder, she adds a Distant Finale where the two get married, and live to an old age, and he dies happy. The old woman then states that the family fortune was now hers, and apparently the man died a virgin as well. Despite Chizuru's insistence that everything she added was to make it a "happy" ending, the others vehemently disagree, and feel the story is way too depressing to make a play with.
• Blank White Eyes: Ken when driven to tears by yet another destroyed fantasy.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Minatsu's three golden rules of customer service: Kindness, Courtesy, and Destruction.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • The second line of the anime is "are we really animating this thing?"
  • Also the beginning of the DS Game, where the cast talk about the game itself.
  • The first episode of the second season reveals that Ken apparently wrote the Light Novels, which they give to the next student council.
  • In episode 0 of season 2, they openly discuss the fact that they're getting a second season, and talk about what to call it to differentiate it from the first season so as to not confuse viewers which season they're watching. Minatsu also points out the differences in the artwork as one of the differences.
• Bromantic Foil: Ken, upon proclaiming himself a protagonist in an eroge, is told he's this instead.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Subverted twice when Ken was "two-timing". One of the girls was just his stepsister and in the end he chose his childhood friend.
• Building of Adventure: With very few exceptions, the show takes place entirely inside the Student Council Room.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Ken. Although for the most part he acts like a perverted idiot, he actually does care about his fellow student council and helps them out, not to mention he was able to join the student council because he had the top scores in the school. Made even more so in episode 3 when asked if the rumors that he was two-timing during junior high were true, he calmly answered yes instead of denying it, causing Lilicia to eventually give up publishing it.
• But Not Too Foreign: Lilicia.
• The Cameo: Episode 4 features a brief appearance by Ai Enma, who, after saying her signature "Ippen shinde meru" and taking someone to hell, gets water splashed on her by Ken as he runs past her, prompting a Flat "What".
• Catchphrase: "This is not a harem, it's the student council!"
• Chekhov's Gag:
  • Remember when Minatsu tried a wedding dress from the Theatre Club in Episode 1? Well, it's mentioned again in the last episode when it is revealed that Minatsu's dream is to become a bride. Cue Ken's reaction...
  • Minatsu brings up a good point though: Why the hell is that still back there?
• Chick Magnet: So far there are only 2 female characters in this show who are not interested in Ken, one of whom never met him directly.
• Chivalrous Pervert: It's implied that at least some of Ken's behavior is an act. He's shown himself quite willing to get himself into bad situations to spare the rest of the council. He does almost all of the paper work for the council just so he can create a fun environment for the girls to hang out in.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • All of the student council girls exhibit this when Ken brings Erisu, Lilicia's little sister, to the student council office in episode 8 of season 1. While they vehemently deny it, they all seem rather jealous of the attention Erisu is lavishing on him, and accuse him of being a paedophile. Kurimu in particular, gets upset at him after he tells Erisu that he wouldn't hate her if she grew up and got fat, and accuses him of only wanting women for their looks.
  • This crops up in all of them again when Ringo, Ken's stepsister, shows up in episode 6 of season 2.
• Color Failure
• Conversational Troping: While Ken fancies himself as the protagonist of a harem series, it's brought up that the protagonist's best friend is often the one who's girl-crazy and thus doomed to fail. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
• Cool Big Sis: Chizuru.
• Cooldown Hug: Subverted with delightful viciousness by Chizuru:
  Chizuru: Come here, Key-kun. (Hugs him) There there, it's okay.
  Ken: (Weeping) Oh, Chizuru-san, I've been dirtied!!
  Chizuru: (Keeping gentle tone of voice) Oh, don't worry, you've always been covered in filth to begin with...
  Ken: (Literally cracks) Waaaahhh!!
• Corner of Woe: Mafuyu does this in episode 6 of season 2 after Minatsu states that Ringo plays the "sister" role in the show better than the former. Mafuyu laments that she's like one of those characters that quickly get forgotten when a new heroine shows up.
• Covert Pervert: Mafuyu.
• Credits Running Sequence: The ending.
• Crossover: With Haganai. Here's a picture.
• Cross-Popping Veins: These show up from time to time on various characters.
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • Chizuru towards Kurimu, especially in the morning.
  • In the game. Make Ken choose to ask Lilicia and Nakameguro for help. And watch Mafuyu trap on her Paradise.
• A Day in the Limelight: While the student council are all main characters, they get some episodes which gives them more Character Development:
  • Episode 6 of season 1 gives a lot of backstory to Minatsu and Mafuyu, specifically regarding Minatsu and her mother.
  • Episode 9 of season 1 focuses on Chizuru and the ostracizing she received in middle school.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mafuyu can say the most cruel, perverted and twisted things with a straight face and still be as cute as a button.
• Defied Trope: Minatsu is informed that she should be a Genki Girl Book Dumb character when everyone is discussing their academic strengths. She disagrees and helps Kurimu with her math.
• Derailed for Details: A rather basic math problem gets derailed in this way.
• Does Not Like Men: Mafuyu, while an enthusiastic Yaoi Fangirl, is personally afraid of men. Ken is the exception.
• Don't Explain the Joke
  Ken: Fine. Pokkoncho is obviously...
  Kurimu: Obviously?
  Ken: Uhh.....Oh yeah, did you all record that show from last night?
  EVERYONE: WHAT'S POKKONCHO?!
  • But seriously, WHAT THE HELL IS POKKONCHO?!
• Downer Ending: The series ends with all the girls confessing their love to Ken, however due to the circumstances (The president and Chizuru being seniors are graduating while Minatsu and Mafuyu have to move away) the whole group are separated and life moves on.
• Drives Like Crazy: Magiru only drives once to take Ken home when he is sick, but wow does she fit the bill.
• Duck Season, Rabbit Season: In the first episode where Kurimu is loudly approving requests with her stamp by saying shonin ("approved"), Ken stands behind a nearby blackboard and mutters pettanko ("flat-chest"). This continues for a few seconds, until Ken switches and mutters shonin and Kurimu reacts by saying "pettanko". Once her brain catches up, she starts crying into Chizuru's generously endowed chest...
  Kurimu (Rolling on the ground like a baby) "Chizuru, I hate you!!"
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Nakameguro.
• Dysfunction Junction: Zany antics and laughter aside, everyone in the council has some deep seated personal trauma, be it bullying (Chizuru), a broken family (Minatsu and Mafuyu) or a broken heart (Ken). It could probably be argued that Kurimu uses her position on the council to make up for her lack of physical development.
• Eroge: Knowing about these is surprisingly key to the entire plot.
• Expy: Ken, before joining the Student Council, was a slightly less insane Taichi Kurosu. Also, some fans think of him as K1.
• Endless Game: Lilicia and Elise both use the "mono aluminum strategy" for shiritori. Since the game only ends when you run out of words, and each of them just come up with a new chemical compound of aluminium (so the word ends with "m") that starts with "mu", the game keeps going...
• Evolving Credits: In season 2, as new characters are introduced, they get added to the ending.
• Face Fault
• Fanservice: Usually takes place in Ken's overactive imagination, with the exception of Episode 5, or when the girls are wearing swimsuits. Also again in the game.
• Flipping the Bird: Ringo does this in episode 6 of season 2 to Minatsu. While she actually meant no harm by it, due to someone's influence, Ken says she tends to say things the wrong way.
• Flipping the Table
• From the Mouths of Babes: Erisu, Lilicia's younger sister, says some rather, interesting things at school in episode 8 of the first season. When she plays "doctor" with Ken, she tells him he has cancer. And later she pulls out two dolls, and one of them is clearly a molester. Ken starts to wonder what exactly Lilicia is doing at home with her little sister.
• Gamer Chick: Mafuyu, who spends quite a lot of her time in the show on her PSP or updating some gaming wiki (and she gets really upset when Ken asks her to drop the latter in favor of getting back to work).
• Gratuitous English:
  • Just one the most funny since it's Ken saying it.
  Ken: OH MY GOD!
  • In the anime:
  Kurimu: Get out.
• Harem Seeker: Sugisaki Ken, and proud of it. He really wants this harem, enough for an academically average boy like him to study hard enough to get the grades necessary to get into the council.
• Headbutt Thermometer: Ken does this to Minatsu in episode 4 of season 2 after the latter complains of some chest pains. He then concludes that she must not be sick since her temperature seems normal. He then realizes he got too close for comfort for her, and braces for the pounding she would normally dish out. However, Minatsu is more relieved when she hears more about his past and gives him a kiss to verify how she really felt towards him by this point.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Akaba Chizuru: Loving big sister? Cunning and sadistic seductress? Cute and fluffy sheep impersonator? Which one is she, really?
  • Don't forget to add "global mover and shaker". She had a freaking million-dollar check (actually, ¥100,008,049) in her possession!
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Ken's speech on public morals is not taken well at first. Lampshaded in the same breath though.
• Hikikomori:
  • Mafuyu, who is both a gaming-obsessed shut-in and one of the more popular students in her class. Somehow.
  • The latter's partially lampshaded in that she was asked to wear a tiny outfit in public, but was too socially inept to realize she was supposed to be embarrassed while wearing it. This got her enough notoriety with the student body that she won a spot on the council.

• Hot Teacher: Student Council Advisor Magiru Satori. Seriously◊: a black choker, a miniskirt and Zettai Ryouiki with visible garters? Hekiyou Academy seems to have a very loose staff dress code. Then again, Satori-sensei apparently doesn't teach any classes anyway.
• Homoerotic Subtext: The main point of Mafuyu's delusions, but in episode 12 it becomes "real" along with Nakameguro!
• Hot Springs Episode: Episode 9 of season 2, when Asuka, Ken's ex-girlfriend, "abducts" him, as told by his stepsister Ringo. The student council girls decide they need to find him as a result, and end up taking a bath as well, and forgetting about finding him from time to time.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Minatsu lectures Ken about not being able to recognize her with her hair in a different style, and a few episodes later they go by train to Tokyo. When Mafuyu takes her ribbon off, Minatsu is unable to tell it's her own sister.
  • In episode 9 of season 1, Ken tells Mafuyu she's not going to learn about guys by reading about Boys' Love material. She immediately counters it by telling him he's trying to learn about girls from dating sims and eroge.
  • In episode 6 of season 2, all of the girls begin doing things to Ken's stepsister Ringo, such as patting her on the head, rubbing their cheek on hers, or squeezing her arms and legs, while also simultaneously telling him that he shouldn't be doing weird things.

• I Know Mortal Kombat: Ken claims reading Fist of the North Star allowed him to catch kunai.
• Imagine Spotting:
  • Kurimu is not only able to see Ken's eroge-like fantasies, she can pull it off the screen. Also, it runs on a floppy disc.
  • Not just any floppy disc, but an ancient 5 1/4" floppy disc!
• Improbably Female Cast: Ken is the only major male character. Yoshiki only appears in a couple of episodes, and except for one, he usually doesn't have much of a role in it.
• Indirect Kiss: Averted in episode 7 of the first season. While in Tokyo, the student council gets up early to watch the sun rise. However, no shops are open during that time, and the vending machines requires exact change. They have enough coins for one can of juice, which they share amongst all of them while they watch the sun rise on an overcast morning. What makes it interesting is that Ken, the big pervert that he is, never brings up the fact that he shared one of these with every one of the girls.
• Inner Monologue: Ken narrates his Inner Monologue when he has been banished to the other side of the room for talking. It confuses the girls to no end.
• Intimate Lotion Application: Ken's Imagine Spot about his version of the novel the council is trying to make involves all girls being part of his harem while he gets into various cliche fanservice situations with them. In Chizuru's case, it has her being dressed in a tiny bikini while flirtatiously asking him to rub suntan lotion on both her back and her front.

• Konami Code: Shows up in the strangest of places — as the title for the second ending theme.
• Kunai Catch: Ken has mad skills, see I Know Mortal Kombat for details.
• Love Epiphany: Virtually all of the girls at one point or another realize they're in love with Ken to varying degrees. Some of them try to deny it, such as Chizuru, but others make it pretty obvious, such as Minatsu, who gives him a kiss at the end of episode 4 in season 2.
• Lucky Charms Title: Lampshaded, of all things. When the Portmanteau Series Nickname SeiZon is considered, so is the idea of adding a little decorative star in there.
• Lyrical Cold Open: "Treasure," the opening theme of anime first season.
• Male Gaze: Used from time to time in the show, especially if the girls are wearing anything different.
• Manchild: Kurimu is eighteen years old but has a maturity surpassed by Lilicia's little sister, Elise.
• Meaningful Name: The name of each of the girls in the Council corresponds to the season in which Ken met them in; they are as follows: Sakurano (Cherry-Blossom-Field) Kurimu = Spring. Shiina Minatsu (Deep-Summer) = Summer. Akaba (Red-Leaves) Chizuru = Autumn. Shiina Mafuyu (True Winter) = Winter. These are significant as they represent the times in the previous year of Ken's life when meeting each of them gradually helped him out of suicidal self pity and depression.
• Minimalist Cast: There are 5 main characters, and only about a dozen people are ever shown on screen. Ever.
• Modesty Bedsheet:
  • Mafuyu...seriously just look at it◊ with your own eyes.
  OH PLEASE HAVE MY CHILDREN, MAFUYU-CHAN!!
  • Chizuru also has one when she wakes up from sleeping on the train in episode 7. It looks like she's wearing a dress, really.
• Moe: In-Universe. Kurimu is so moe it hurts apparently.
  (referring to Kurimu) Entire cast: Dangerously moe...

• Morality Pet: Kurimu is Chizuru's. Strong emphasis on pet. Or possibly mindslave.
• Ms. Fanservice: Chizuru, mostly, though the other girls have their moments of this as well.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Happens quite a bit with the Shout-Out and other various hijinks the characters get themselves into:
  • In episode 6 of the first season, Ken attempts to bypass Kurimu in approving some really lewd stuff for the upcoming school festival. However, Minatsu blocks him, then a beam of light flashes from her hand, literally vaporizing Ken into dust. After Kurimu also rejects the other girl's suggestions, he comes back to life as if nothing happened.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Whenever Kurimu says a saying she adds except Ken.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In episode 5 of season 1, Minatsu brainwashes her sister into thinking Ken is the enemy. It works, and Mafuyu starts throwing things at him with almost pinpoint accuracy. She then throws another object, which breaks the blindfold he was wearing, and was preventing him from seeing the girls in their swimsuits and bikinis.
• No Fourth Wall:
  • The show doesn't have a fourth wall to begin with, considering the first two minutes are spent discussing how the characters will adapt their own series, which crosses over with Self-Deprecation and Who Would Want to Watch Us??
  Ken: This is why I didn't want to be animated.
  Kurimu: An anime that actually works by featuring only one room exists only on Sunday evenings!
  • Later, on their trip to Tokyo in Episode 7, the council is shown triumphantly arriving in Tokyo in the morning. After the scene cut, the council is sitting around a table that night in the hotel.
  Kurimu: Why? What happened to walking around Tokyo? Odaiba? Shizuya?
  Ken: There's no way we'd go to places like that. This is the Heikyou Academy Student Council, you know?
  • The manga, which goes in a slightly different direction, has Ken tasked to write a light novel about the student council. Why? Because he already wrote one. He finds this out when he is offered a copy of the original light novel on which both the manga and anime are based as part of a promotion. He has no memory of this; apparently Chizuru wiped his brain after he wrote it.
    • Come to think of it, there might as well not even be a pretend fourth wall in the manga's first volume as the majority of it is about how they are now a serialized manga.
• Not a Morning Person: Chizuru, whose Cuteness Proximity towards Kurimu actually increases when she is half-conscious in the morning. She doesn't seem to become evil until she's awake, just clingy.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Mafuyu says this to Ringo in episode 6 of season 2, though she's mad about it because she feels they're both playing the same role in the show due to their Third-Person Person references and liking Ken.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Elise accuses Ken of this when discussing her trip to the student council, to spy on them, with her sister at the end of the episode.
• Oh, Crap!: Ken has this look in episode 4 of season 2 after he takes Minatsu's temperature with his forehead, and realizes he got too close for comfort. He braces for the usual attack she does, and when she calmly talks to him and puts her arms around him, he just keeps freaking out and imagining the worst is going to happen. She kisses him instead to verify that she's falling in love with him.
• Ojou: Lilicia, the Newspaper Club President. Voiced by none other than Mamiko Noto. Chizuru also qualifies to a lesser extent with her (usually) ladylike speech patterns.
• Ojou Ringlets: Lilcia and Elise.
• Older Than They Look: Kurimu is actually an 18 year old senior at her school, and yet looks younger than Mafuyu.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: In episode 4 of season 2, after talking to various students, Ken gets a little jealous at how popular Minatsu seems to be with guys, while Minatsu gets extremely jealous when she sees him talking to some girls in a classroom, many of whom are actively flirting with him. While they discuss student council work a few moments later, both of them are thinking about the other and how they seem to hit it off with members of the opposite sex, and both feel a little insecure about it. It later evolves into a Love Epiphany for Minatsu when she starts to realize why she doesn't like seeing Ken flirting with other girls.
• Only Sane Man: While Ken does not normally fulfill the qualifications of this trope, when the student council runs a radio show he plays this trope to the T so that he would be safe for radio. He breaks down when one part has Minatsu and Mafuyu read a yuri script on air.
• Only Six Faces: Well, not even six, really. There's only about a dozen different people shown, but the girls all seem to have the same face. It's quite evident during the first season opening, during one scene as the girls transition from one to the next. The hair changes quite a bit, but the face barely changes at all.
• Two-Teacher School: Magiru-sensei is the only teacher we see from in the whole school.
• Otaku: Each member of the council, aside from Kurimu, embodies a different fanboy/fangirl stereotype, namely:
  • Ken: Moe Harem Anime, H-Game Otaku and Yuri Fan.
  • Chizuru: Lolicon and Yuri Fan.
  • Minatsu: Hot-Blooded and Shounen Fighting Series Fangirl.
  • Mafuyu: Yaoi Fangirl Gamer Chick.
• Parlor Games:
  • Ken and Elise, Lilicia's little sister, play a round of shiritori when she invades the council room in episode eight. This gets annoying for Ken when Elise keeps ending up at the names of rival light novel publishers.
  • Lilicia and Elise play shiritori, by using the "mono aluminum strategy". Since the game only ends when you run out of words, and each of them just come up with a new chemical compound of aluminium (so the word ends with "m") that starts with "mu", the game keeps going...
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Lampshaded with Mahiru, who refuses to teach. Although... she was never really given a chance to. She has about thirty seconds of screen time total so far.
• The Plan: Lilicia brings her younger sister Erisu to school with her in episode 8 of season 1. But she has stuff going on, so she asks Ken to watch over her for a couple of hours, during which time Erisu spends time with him in the student council office. She mixes things up quite a bit there, causing the girls to get quite jealous of Ken as well. Then at the end of the episode, it turns out that Lilicia had planned for Erisu to be there, and was secretly recording everything they said to show that they weren't doing anything productive. However, Erisu tells her sister that she likes Ken because he was nice to her and played with her, and says that must be why she likes him too if she's always writing articles about him. Lilicia ends up knocking the tape player over as her little sister says those things to her.
• Playing Doctor: Subverted most strangely by Lilicia's little sister Elise, who's wise beyond her years.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Kurimu does this to Minatsu in episode 6 of the first season, after the latter says she and Mafuyu were going to the mainland with their mother who was getting remarried. For her part, Minatsu doesn't really want to go either, but Mafuyu tells the others that she doesn't want the rift between herself and their mother to get worse, which then prompts Ken into action.
• Proud to Be a Geek:
  • Ken is not shy about being a fan of H-Games.
  • Neither is Mafuyu about her obvious gaming addiction.
    • Does Mafuyu even realize she's a geek?
• Rummage Sale Reject: The girls' school uniforms are pretty odd, but alright...but as for the guys? Can you say "magenta-and-black plaid slacks"? Honestly, it works on a miniskirt, but who had the bright idea to put this pattern on any pair of pants?
• School Festival:
  • The festival in question doesn't show until episode 10, but deciding on its theme is the major round-table discussion for episode six.
  • In the game, the scene is depending on your decision before. Seeing Chizuru and Kurimu wearing in a bunny dress while doing a race or helping Minatsu in a "Horse" Battle
• Sentai: After deciding that the school festival theme of the year is "Hot Bloodedness", the council goes into a Sentai tangent, including trying to decide their colors. A reference to Tentai Senshi Sunred even makes it in.
• Serious Business:
  • Elise's cat's cradle patterns. Somehow she shows the entire cosmos using a piece of string.
  Ken: I can see it! The sky's tears!
  Elise: Cat's cradle is so much fun!
  Ken: It's too much fun! It's beyond the fun any human can enjoy!
  • When Kurimu's cake goes missing in episode 2 of season 2, she wants to know who ate it. She suspects it was one of the other student council members, but they all deny it. Then Magiru-sensei shows up, and they suspect her, but she gets sick before she can say much. In the end, it turned out the lunch lady that gave the cake to Kurimu took it back, because it was well past its expiration date, especially when she saw someone took a bite out of it already. Magiru-sensei however didn't get food poisoning, her stomach cramped up from overeating, though the nurse told the students it was food poisoning so Magiru-sensei wouldn't look so ridiculous to her students.
  • In episode 9 of season 2, Ringo calls Kurimu to tell him Ken's been "abducted" by his ex-girlfriend. They then learn he went with her to a hot spring, and at first try not to seem too interested in it. However, they eventually decide to go there to look for him, even though they had no real reason to.
• Shaped Like Itself: Mafuyu won't forget about Sugisaki-senpai until the day Mafuyu forgets about senpai!
• Shipper on Deck: Elise, Lilicia's sister, ships Ken/Lilicia.
• Ship Tease: The famous Episode 11, seriously this episode only exists to tease all Ken/Mafuyu shippers.
• Shout-Out:
  • Here we go: Within the first episode alone, there are nods to Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star, Higurashi: When They Cry, K-On!, Dragon Ball Z and Dragonball Evolution... the Student Council knows their fellow fictions, several of these are in the space of 2 minutes before the title sequence.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist, Death Note, Yu-Gi-Oh!...
  • CLANNAD as well, with the argument about the names Sunohara and Okazaki.
  • Count Resident Evil too.
  • Episode 3 brings us "Ippenshindemiru?"
    • And Poke Mon.
  • Episode four has extended sequences referencing Strike Witches (shot for shot) and K-On!
    • And the entrance scene of the said episode is definitely like Marimite
  • Episode 5 has Ken summoning his Stand to fantasize about the girls, and even Toradora! too. Honestly, let's quit listing the references. We're getting to Serial Escalation here.
  • Ken's face in episode 7 certainly reminds this troper of snake-faced former-captain of the 3rd Division.
  • Now we've got recalls of Haruhi Suzumiya and Higurashi: When They Cry, as well as Metal Gear Solid.
  • Episode 10 gives us Rumbling Hearts, and Air among others.
    • ...Including directly referencing Kamina's death (complete with blurred up version of the exact shot).
  • Episode 11 has Fate/stay night. Apparently Mafuyu played it.
  • As well as Castlevania.
  • Episode 12 combines this with Mythology Gag, referencing Key/Visual Arts and the Kyoto Animation adaptation of Air.
    • Also references Hikaru no Go.
    • Asuka's answer to meeting the council is to defeat them Dynasty Warriors style!
• Sibling Yin-Yang: The Shiina siblings. Minatsu is the outspoken, tomboyish one. Mafuyu is the petite, quiet one.
• Sick Episode: Ken is sick and has to miss school in episode 11 of the first season. The girls try their usual antics and discussions without him, and realize it doesn't work very well without him present. They also gain a much deeper respect and understanding for him after doing the student council paperwork he usually does on his own after they leave for the day. And especially after two boys he went to middle school with give the girls more background on his alleged cheating, and how he basically let them beat him up the last year of middle school after they explain one of the girls he hurt was his stepsister. Mafuyu, of all people, goes into Violently Protective Girlfriend mode, and smacks one of the boys with her bag after getting tired of hearing them badmouth Ken. When he tries to hit her back, Minatsu jumps in, and Chizuru does something to them, though it's not seen. Even Lilicia, who was following them, ends up defending them as well from the boys when they try to badmouth the student council members.
• Sidetracked by the Analogy: Kurimu and word problems don't mix. Takeshi's story is more complex than the arithmetic in it.
• Sleep Learning: Chizuru is seen using it on Kurimu, and the effects make themselves visible the next morning.
• Something We Forgot: At the end of episode five, Chizuru gets a look in her eye that says this. Turns out that Ken is still in that locker.
• Stepford Smiler: Recent chapters and episodes imply that Ken's happy-go-lucky persona is a defence mechanism to keep him from a severe emotional trauma from back in junior high, and not his actual personality.
• The Stinger: Season 2's episodes have one after the credits play, usually a follow up to whatever they were doing that episode.
• Student Council President: Kurimu, though she's a bit airheaded for someone in a position of leadership, and as revealed in episode 2, a bit lacking as well in the matters of academics.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: Nakameguro.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Ken comments that Chizuru's coldness will just make her sweetness more intense. She agrees: when she liked one guy, she filled his locker with reams of paper with the words "I love you" written over and over and over. Intense.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: In episode 9 of season 2, after Ken runs into the other student council members at the hot springs, they all claim they weren't worried about him, and certainly didn't come to the hot springs to come find him.
• Take That!: "Let's add an orb around the star!!" "...evolution." "Don't mention that one!!"
• The Tease: Chizuru
• Telepathy: At one point in the manga, Minatsu can read Ken's thoughts and Ken thinks it's a good thing because it shows how close they are.
• Third-Person Person:
  • Mafuyu thinks Mafuyu should always refer to Mafuyu in the third person.
  • She takes this up to eleven when she is pretending to have amnesia, to create a Tear Jerker play, she still refers to herself in the third person while asking what her name is.
• Token Mini-Moe: Kurimu, who ironically is older than Mafuyu, the youngest of the group.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Kurimu and her usa-maru. Which are so sweet most people wonder how she can eat so many. They also apparently "taste like happiness."
  • On a side note, the name "usa maru" could come from the mangaka Usamaru Furuya, who wrote and illustrated a manga called "Happiness". Shout-Out? Maybe.
• Tranquil Fury: Oh, Crap! every female member of the Student Council when Ken is playing with Elise and her games turn out...weird at best.
• The Trickster: Chizuru, yet again.
• Troperiffic: This show is out to use every. single. trope. possible. And some that aren't. It's obvious during the first episode.
• Tsundere:
  • Minatsu. Lampshaded approximately four seconds in, even before she really does anything tsunderelike.
  • Lilicia may also qualify. She forces herself to do this in episode 8 of season 2 towards Kurimu, though she talks like this to Ken normally.
  • Mafuyu has a tsundere blog. I-it's not like she's updating it because she l-likes you, dummy.
• Unreliable Narrator: Ken, lampshaded by Kurimu.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Too bad Ken, even though one of the girls has actually confessed to you she still has no intention of having sex with you.
• Verbal Tic: The cast randomly assigns each other one, and runs with it. Chizuru's "Mokyu~" stands out the most.
• Victorious Childhood Friend:
  • At first played straight and then subverted: In middle school Ken was in a Love Triangle with his sister-in-law and his childhood friend. His childhood friend won, but the relationship did not end well... at least for Ken.
  • He starts dating her again in the novels. A bit of a base breaker for the English speaking fandom at least.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!:
  • A slight variation of this occurs in episode 11 of season 1. Though Ken only missed one day of school, during that day the girls quickly realize how much he does for them, not just with his usual perverted antics, but the fact that he does all of their paperwork himself, and despite his behavior, does have a nicer side to him that they usually overlooked. In the end they realize that he's the lynchpin to their group.
  • In episode 2 of season 2, Ken suffers temporary amnesia after Lilicia hits him over the head repeatedly with some books for allegedly making moves on her little sister. When the other student council girls try to jumpstart his memory, he says he can't remember, and anything they showed him just made him remorseful of his previous actions. So he vows to be a different person, causing the girls to get a little sad that they lost the old Ken. However, he then spots some porno mags that Magiru-sensei had confiscated earlier and his memory instantly returns. Though the girls are less than pleased that all it took to jog his memories was some naked women, and they beat him up a little.
• Wham Episode: Episode 6 of season 1, when Minatsu tells the others that she and Mafuyu were going to transfer schools. She didn't want to tell them until the last moment, but Chizuru was Genre Savvy enough to realize she was hiding something from them, and made her tell them the secret. This doesn't sit too well with Kurimu, although by the end of the episode she's learned to accept it. Then Minatsu says they're not transferring till spring at the earliest, after she asks her mom if they can stay a little longer to finish out the school term at least.
• Wham Line:
  • Mafuyu delivers one at the very end of episode 11, when she gives a Love Confession to Ken, in front of the other girls in the student council office no less.
  • Asuka, Ken's ex-girlfriend, says several to him in episode 9 of season 2. The first one was that he wasn't going to be able to get a harem. And the second one was that he only love her. But once he gives his answer that he's still going to seek a harem and make the girls happy, though initially upset, she plays it off and decides to roll with it. And teases him like crazy when they run into the other girls a few moments later.
• Who Would Want to Watch Us?: At one point, the cast tries to write a novel of their own "adventures", even though they are characters in a book. This quickly turns into a Hostile Show Takeover. Everyone has wildly divergent ideas of what they want the story to be.
  • Kurimu wants something like Maria Watches Over Us.
  • Minatsu wants something akin to Fist of the North Star with Ken fighting his nonexistent big brother.
  • Mafuyu wants a yaoifest. With the big brother character.
  • Chizuru wants a Mistress and Servant Boy story.
  • Ken's story is dense with Harem Genre tropes. In order:
    • Accidentally seeing Kurimu in the shower, Minatsu cooking breakfast for him in a Hadaka Apron, Chizuru asking Ken to put suntan oil on her (in the Student Council Room?) and Mafuyu tripping only to say that she's not wearing panties.
    • Considering what happened in episode 10, the latter may be more "real" than imagined...
• Wingding Eyes: During episode four's K-On! segment, Kurimu gets yen-sign eyes when she thinks of the student council band becoming rich via character songs. It's even lampshaded, too.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Ken, who believes himself to be in one of his eroge.
• Yandere: Non romantically. Chizuru's old friend Kanade was jealous of how she fit in and got along with everyone and tried to bully her into submissions. She wanted to be her only friend.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Mafuyu, who has a passion for seeing Ken and almost any other male in bromance.
• Yuri Fan: Ken and Chizuru.

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