Starting up Spring 2012 for me is this here first episode of Nisio Isin’s famous/infamous manga, Medaka Box. And boy was I psyched for this one ^^

The episode didn’t really steer away that much from how the manga played it out, which is a good sign (for now at least) But all the same, we start out by being introduced to our main heroine, the newly-elected student council president of Hakoniwa Academy, first-year Kurokami Medaka. She’s described as a “monster girl” numerous times in the episode and with good reason – she’s pretty broken in terms of normal human capabilities (as seen by her bunshin-esque tsugiash technique against the Kendo Hall delinquents) but I’ll leave it at that.

One thing I’d like to point out with Medaka is that she’s voiced by Aki Toyosaki who also did K-On!’s own Hirasawa Yui. Yes. THAT Hirasawa Yui. Though, she also did Aoi Kunieda from Beelzebub so the surprise level for me wasn’t as high as much as I would have expected. Definitely an awesome job on her part.

We are also introduced to our main hero shortly after – the childhood friend Hitoyoshi Zenkichi. We don’t get to know much about Zenkichi other than he’s been friends with Medaka ever since he was two, which results in a close relationship between the two. As we see in this episode, he holds Medaka and Medaka’s ideals in high regard, going so far as to defend them himself. Though by the end of the episode, we learn that Zenkichi has more feelings for Medaka than he’s let out (and yes, this starts out like a school-life/rom-com)

And last on the character introductions roll we have Shiranui Hansode, Zenkichi’s loli-friend and classmate. She’s pretty mischievous, and we actually see a bit of that in how she “made a request” to the student council to fix Hyuga’s attitude. We’ll see a lot more of her as the series progresses.

The other important thing we see here is the suggestion box which will play a greater role in the coming episodes, hence the series’ title (lol box) But there’s no further mystery behind than what was explained in this episode – the suggestion box is there for the students’ concerns, which will then be resolved by the student council.

All in all, a very okay start in my opinion. Nothing spectacular yet but it still showcased how quirky and fun it is. (being a total fan of the series though, just having the first episode air is spectacular in its own right, lol) Was it just me though, or was it a bit fast-paced?