Well, TekkaReploid, if you insist on not explaining and continuing to flame vague judgments without anything specific or concrete, I invite you to PM me with something solid.
a) The entire series is a warping of a "stock plot", if you hadn't noticed.
b) Setup of duels? Cliche? Okay, finding one of the people most loved by each of the school's most powerful people [Touga excepted, who the hell knows what was going on there]* and getting them to turn on them out of jealousy/envy? Uh yeah, happens ALL the time.
c) So what if it doesn't relate to the big picture? It's called having a multithreaded series. You CAN have more than one plot in a series; they call that a "subplot." And IMO it's an advantage to have subplots; otherwise the series risks becoming one-tracked and dull.
d) Your not liking the characters is a personal opinion, and has no bearing on the actual, objective value of the episodes.
You know, if you'd posted some actual backup for your arguments, this could have gotten really interesting.
* Though I did have a theory in a little story I wrote a while back, who even knows. I'm intrigued by #21, though, simply BECAUSE it makes no frigging sense.
