Random Curiosity

「はじらいながら」 (Hajirai Nagara)
“While Shying Away”

Episode at a Glance:
Rito wakes up to find Lala naked in his bed again, but is surprised to see her unusually embarrassed about it. In addition, Lala is also unusually polite, which Rito and the others notice at school. Figuring that something is up, Rito takes Lala to the roof to ask her about it, but is distracted by how cute she looks with this timid personality. After realizing that Lala has a fever, Rito brings her to Mikado, who diagnoses Lala with a Korotto cold that causes a slight fever and personality changes. It turns out it doesn’t affect humans though, but Mikado decides to order a vaccine anyway, which will take a few days to arrive. Back in class, all the guys are drawn to this new Lala and end up taking out their frustration on Rito when they hear Lala say she already has him.

Back at home, Rito starts thinking that this new Lala isn’t so bad, but wakes up the next morning to find a completely different Lala, who calls him “senpai” and helps him exercise so that he can become the greatest person in the universe. After her running invention blows up though, Rito decides to check with Mikado if the vaccine arrived yet, but quickly learns that it hasn’t. Over the next few days, Rito is subjected to a tsundere Lala, tsukkomi Lala, and finally an ambitious Lala, who plans to take over the Earth with androids for Rito’s sake. With an operation set to commence at noon, Rito quickly checks if the vaccine came in yet, but sadly finds out that it still hasn’t. Mikado however thinks it wouldn’t be too bad for Rito to be ruler of the Earth, but he has no desire to take over anything. With only an hour remaining, Rito heads over to the old school building to try and talk Lala out of it, but out that she’s already prepared the army of androids, along with Haruna, Risa, Mio, and Saruyama as his generals.

Seeing that Rito is trying to get in the way of their plans of owning their own land, Risa, Mio, and Saruyama order their androids to stop him, while Haruna orders hers to defend him. Realizing that he has an android corps under his command too, Rito orders them to defend him, causing all hell to break loose. Yami then arrives with the vaccine, but is stopped by Zastin, who’s happy that Lala’s finally acting like a Deviluke. Having picked up the vaccine, Rito tries to reach Lala, who questions why he can’t understand her feelings. Hearing this, Rito says that he understands how she’s always been always thinking about him despite the personality changes, and ends up confessing that he likes her. Hearing this, Lala returns to her normal self just seconds away from commencing the attack; however, her father arrives in his spaceship, snatches Lala away, and says he won’t allow such a marriage, before declaring to everyone on Earth that he’s the ruler of the universe.

Next Episode:
「地球最後の夜」 (Chikyuu Saigo no Yoru)
“The Earth’s Final Night”

Impressions:
Based on the preview last time, I thought that this episode was going to pretty fruitless (more so than your typical “good” To LOVE-Ru fruitlessness), but was pleasantly surprised that it seemed to scream “manga material”. In other words, funny and entertaining like the entire series should have been. While I haven’t read the manga myself, I heard that something along these lines does take place, which I’m inclined to believe given the significant plot development at the end.

In any case, Tomatsu Haruka displayed some pretty good range acting-wise in this episode, with Lala catching a space sickness that causes personality changes. I have to agree with Rito that the shy, embarrassed Lala is one of the “moe-est” out of the lot, but the tsundere Lala is appealing too if you like characters like that. (I know I do.) The nyan-nyan Lala turned out to be a Kansai speaking, tsukkomi dishing Lala though, which was amusing in its own way and didn’t infringe on any Macross Frontier copyrights.

On another note, it was odd to see Ren appear out of the blue all of a sudden, having been missing from the show for so long now. With all the anime original episodes lately, I’m actually curious as to why they’ve chosen to leave him out of the picture for the past seven episodes. At the same time, his appearance was brief (and didn’t feature Run), but at least it wasn’t overshadowed by all the other girls in the series since they weren’t around.

So in terms of plot development, Rito has come to terms with the fact he likes Lala and confessed in front of everyone to get her to return to her senses. Given how this matter has been beaten around the bush for a while now, I was wondering when this moment would come (if ever), so it surprised me just as much as it did Haruna. I thought that this would lead nicely into some more love triangle issues, but there isn’t enough time to delve into this further with only two episodes remaining. Instead, they’ve shifted back to the more pressing problem with Lala’s father, who’s decided to destroy the world now because Rito’s made a move on his daughter without becoming the universe’s greatest man. Quite a pickle he’s in. With the preview only showing glimpses of previous episodes, it’s hard to say what will happen next time, but I imagine they’ll wrap up the series with this.

Finally, I realize that this is flashback scene and isn’t new, but it’s still ridiculously cute, so I’m going to mention it anyway.

Cast:
- Yuuki Rito (結城 梨斗) / Watanabe Akeno (渡辺 明乃)
- Lala Satalin Deviluke (ララ・サタリン・デビルーク) / Tomatsu Haruka (戸松 遥)
- Sairenji Haruna (西連寺 春菜) / Yahagi Sayuri (矢作 紗友里)
- Gid Lucione Deviluke (ギオ・ルシオン・デビルーク) / Nakamura Hidetoshi (中村 秀利)
- Zastin (ザスティン) / Koyasu Takehito (子安 武人)
- Saruyama (猿山) / Yoshino Hiroyuki (吉野 裕行)
- Momioka Risa (籾岡 里沙) / Yuzuki Ryouka (柚木 涼香)
- Sawada Mio (沢田 未央) / Chiba Chiemi (千葉 千恵巳)
- Konjiki no Yami (金色の闇) / Fukuen Misato (福圓 美里)
- Ren (レン) / Ooura Fukuya (大浦 冬華)
- Peke (ペケ) / Arai Satomi (新井 里美)
- Yuuki Mikan (結城 美柑) / Hanazawa Kana (花澤 香菜)
- Male student (男子生徒) / Konno Jun (金野 潤)
- Male student (男子生徒) / Adzuma Masataka (我妻 正崇)
- Male student (男子生徒) / Matsuo Daisuke (松尾 大亮)