"The anime 'The Classmate at the Next Table, Ellie, Who Occasionally Speaks Sincere Words in Russian' has finished airing its first three episodes. Following the 'Three Episode Rule,' I will now provide some evaluation.
If I were to summarize it in one sentence, I would say that the plot design is too shocking and explosive. This so-called 'romance anime' definitely has the potential to become a 'harem anime.'
Episode 1#
First 14 minutes#
The animation production was handled by Animation Studio. Personally, I quite like their work, especially in terms of light effects. The detailed portrayal of the starry sky in 'Love Little Planet' was particularly impressive, as they matched it with real star charts, showcasing their attention to detail.
Ellie's entrance was accompanied by piano music, creating a very elegant atmosphere. It's worth mentioning that the music teacher, Tobuaki, also participated in the production of 'Teasing Master Takagi-san.'
In the original work, the appearance of Ando caused the other girls present to scream, creating a contrast with Ellie. In the anime, it is portrayed through the narration of a male student, highlighting Ellie's 'aloof' influence.
Soon after, the conversation between the male and female protagonists begins. Masa's quick response quickly establishes his 'otaku' image.
Next, the Russian phrase 'Милашка' quickly catches the audience's attention. Due to the promotional PV, most of the audience already knows that its true meaning is 'you're cute,' which is different from Ellie's explanation in Japanese, making the audience curious about what will happen next.
The OP is clearly well-funded, and the climax of the second half of the music implies that something happened before the main story (which is detailed in the third episode, so I won't go into it here).
The intentional close-up and emphasis on the 'same kind of spicy ramen' already hints at the relationship between the two, serving as a foreshadowing.
This scene where the female protagonist gets jealous of her childhood friend is also very cute!
After being recognized as a 'female friend' by Masa, Ellie's surprise is clearly visible. In order to hide her emotions, she chooses to walk away. In the anime, you can see Ellie's mouth curling up as she leaves.
But you should take a look at the original work! The key is in the last paragraph.
It's clear that the female protagonist is quite happy.
Last 10 minutes#
||Due to the aftermath of watching 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica,'|| I couldn't help but analyze every element in the scenes.
It's worth noting that the elongated pronunciation of ' サー ' is emphasized here. I'm not sure if it's important or not, so I'll leave it for now.
You can see that this is a scene in a small park. If children appear, this scene is probably the only one that fits.
I won't screenshot and analyze what happens in the classroom. If you want to see it, please watch it yourself. Screenshots without motion and sound are meaningless.
![Chat log with 'little sister❤️']](https://s2.loli.net/2024/07/18/XRB1FqELQUiGpvY.png)
This section reveals that Ellie's little sister is also an 'otaku.' Viewers who haven't read the original work might just laugh it off, without realizing that it's also a foreshadowing.
The subsequent plot already portrays the characters quite clearly, and I'm a bit lazy, so I'll leave it at that for the first episode.
The changing ED in each episode shows sincerity. I use Apple Music personally, so I can get the single within 2 hours after the anime ends.
However, as of now, the ED and OP in Apple Music have been taken down in the country, probably due to copyright reasons.
In that case, welcome to Netease Cloud Music! And currently, you can listen without a membership.
Episode 2#
It immediately hints that their relationship may not be ordinary. Ellie's gaze towards the scum.
Ellie speaking in Russian is also very cute, but unfortunately, she doesn't know that the male protagonist understands. As mentioned in the first episode, only the male protagonist's little sister knows that he understands.
However, her scheming personality prevents the male protagonist's little sister from exposing her on the spot (or it could be because she doesn't want to reveal her true identity).
What? You're asking who the male protagonist's little sister is?
In the second episode, you can see the male protagonist's little sister reading a romance manga on the couch, corresponding to the conversation in the first episode. She's reading a manga with a sibling theme, and it's already so obvious...
Next, you can see the scene where the male protagonist's little sister wakes him up. Due to the unique perspective, the images might not be able to be displayed here.
When I was watching TOKYO MX in Japan during the second episode, I really felt, 'Ah, can this be broadcasted in mainland China?'
https://oimaster.top/posts/essay/ad-japa
In the original work, when the male protagonist's little sister wakes him up, he is having a dream about his childhood. However, the anime moved it to the first episode. Take a look:
'Dear Venus' here means ' 愛しい女神，' which translates to 'beloved goddess.' Some Chinese subtitle groups directly translated it into English and left, so I'm adding this here.
Ellie definitely suffered a lot because of her concern for the male protagonist.
In the original work, we can see Ellie's thoughts: Ellie knows that Yuki and Masa's homes are about three stops away from each other, so they couldn't get off at the same station. Combined with their conversation at noon, she speculates that they are going to one person's house.
In reality, her speculation is correct, as Yuki wants to store all the merchandise she bought at Masa's house.
The translation of the following scene is that Ellie misheard ' 彼 (boyfriend)' as ' 枯 (which sounds the same in Japanese).' When she searched online, she saw a manga image like this:
In the image, a boy and a girl are sitting face to face on a bed. The girl is wearing a loose shirt and smiling shyly, while the boy... is shirtless.
And then her brain completely shut down.
||Although I couldn't find the so-called ' 枯 shirt' manga online.||
Episode 3#
First 18 minutes#
This part tells the story of Ellie's sister assisting her.
There are some parts that resonate with me personally. Unfortunately, the word count is getting a bit long, and it might be tiring to read, so I'll see if I can write another article to explain it in detail.
As someone who has read the manga, I wasn't surprised by the plot. However, I was deeply drawn in by the presentation and music.
||But when I was in Japan, I bought two volumes of the manga, and now I feel a bit regretful that they weren't enough for the third episode.||
The manga has a detailed dance sequence, but it was already shown in the OP of the anime, so I won't show it here!||Actually, it's also because I'm lazy. Of course, there are also copyright issues.||
Last 6 minutes#
||The most explosive scene of the entire show!!||
When the music box (I'm not sure what instrument it is, please correct me if I'm wrong) starts playing, you know something is about to happen.
Take a closer look, counterclockwise cowlick.
But Marsha has yellow eyes, while the girl Masa saw in his childhood had blue eyes.
||Could eye color change?|| To further support this from another aspect, I need to find out more about Marsha's whereabouts.
At this point, I remembered that Ellie mentioned she had been to Japan five years ago. Based on her age, five years ago, Marsha was also in elementary school.
I might have discovered something.
Since I didn't buy all the volumes of the original work, with uncertainty in my heart, I checked Wikipedia.
Maria Mikhailovna Kudjo (マリヤ・ミハイロヴナ・九条（ - くじょう），Мария Михайловна Куджо，voiced by Sachiko Fujii)1
Ellie's sister, nicknamed 'Marsha' (マーシャ). She is one year older than Kuse and Ellie, and her birthday is on December 24th. Her personality is completely different from Ellie's, and she is shorter in height, often leading others to mistake her for Ellie's younger sister. She serves as the student council secretary. In fact, she is Masa's childhood crush, the 'Russian-speaking girl.' She often mispronounces his name, and Masa's willingness to learn Russian was actually to communicate with Marsha. However, they went their separate ways before he learned it, and they only met again in high school, but she had already fallen for another boy.
Okay, I got it. Let's go back to the anime. After hearing the name 'Masa,' Marsha remembers something and tries to test it in Russian, but Masa replies that he doesn't understand Russian.
The close-up of Marsha's tearful memories in the third volume of the manga.
However, could it be that Marsha...
Contrasting with the childhood park scene. Although Animation Studio||maliciously|| added a glare, you can still see that it's the same scene! Even the male protagonist's cowlick is the same! Marsha's mention of her boyfriend 'Sir-kun' matches the childhood slip of the tongue!
So I speculate that the information on Wikipedia, which states that 'she had fallen for another boy,' is still incorrect. However, since I haven't bought the later volumes of the original work, it's possible that Wikipedia is correct.
To delve deeper into this, I looked through the official Twitter account's past posts and found an incredible illustration. Take a look at the tweet:
マ【絶対、お嫁さんにしてもらうんだからぁぁーー！！】 #ロシデレ
![Marsha [I will definitely make you marry me!!]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg.com%2Fmedia%2FGL-j1hTbgAAno2Q%3Fformat%3Djpg%26name%3D4096x4096&w=1920&q=75)
Based on this, I further doubt the identity of Marsha's boyfriend.
Of course, all of these speculations could be wrong. I hope everyone enjoys watching the anime.
This article is also updated on xLog by Mix Space.
The original link is https://oimaster.top/posts/essay/rosh-comm-3