「鉄板(メタル)マスター」 (Teppan (Metaru) Masutaa)
“Metal Master”

There wasn’t any further explanation as to why Natsuhi is as upset with Maho as he is, suggesting that his frustration does stem the loss in gym time. That was an oversight on my part last time when I said what Maho decides to do doesn’t have a direct effect on him, so I’ll have to hedge my statement last time about how Natsuhi’s perceives Maho’s halfhearted interest as a denouncement of his basketball religion. He clearly doesn’t have a problem with her playing basketball if she seriously wants to, and even goes so far as supporting them to beat his teammates during the inter-class competition. I almost feel like I owe him an apology of sorts, much like he gave Maho. Almost.

Anyway, with all of that sorted out relatively early in the episode, the rest of it quickly turned to a lighthearted affair. I can’t say that I mind though, when Saki is going all dictator-like when it comes to okonomiyaki and Maho is about to wet herself because she’s scared of the dark. The changeover to the Natsuhi x Hinata side of things was pretty cute as well, and very different from the Subaru x Tomoka type of cute. In the latter case, any cute remarks tends to come with pedophilic strings attached. However, putting Subaru with Natsuhi seems to walk that fine line and turned out rather amusing too, considering that Hinata’s underwear was involved.

I’ll be quick to admit that I found Subaru’s serious tone about returning the underwear unnoticed a lot funnier than I probably should have. It got even better when Natsuhi saved his own butt and left Subaru for dead (the wise thing to do), only for our teenage coach be saved by Tomoka in a very precarious position. It’s no secret that this series absolutely loves digging Subaru’s grave for him, which is why I was actually pleasantly surprised to see Tomoka help him out and save the situation from degenerating into a predictable slapstick one. The same goes for the scene at the end, where we were spared from having to witness the usual (mis)treatment that a male protagonist gets when he’s caught inadvertently peeping on a bunch of underage girls changing.

To avoid all that nonsense, Subaru probably could’ve just asked the school if he could watch and likely would’ve been allowed to. He is their coach after all, so I can’t really say I cared for how the episode got dumber and dumber as it went along. I realize it was for a comedic set up to close off the episode and could also have been for Miho’s personal enjoyment, but there was already plenty of that from Hinata’s underwear incident just before. We could’ve ended up an uplifting note and left it at that, but nope, they had to slip in just a bit more fan-service. Despite my obvious negativity, I actually don’t mind that they did. I simply would’ve been perfectly fine without it, so take this as more of an observation than a complaint. Overall, this was still a good week for Ro-Kyu-Bu.

* Full-length images this week: 01, 07, 09, 11, and 32.

 

Preview

30 Comments

      1. Just like how you date a normal girl… It’s not like anyone’s against it, seeing as half the people we know shipped us since God knows when.

        The only thing were at odds at is her weird decision NOT to watch anime even though she modded out room with shoujo manga… -_-‘

        TheM0onDOgg
      2. well, there is a date consisting of holding hands and eating ice cream, there is a date with some heavy kissing in the dark cinema, and then there is a date that ends in a love hotel – as you can see dates come in all manners of “age ratings”

        ewok40k
      3. Well the first time we “did the deed” was when she’s 13 and I was 15, days before our birthdays. Well we were curious and I’m just a kid back then. You can’t possibly blame me. As is, you can’t possibly blame Subaru, because, well it’s normal. It’s normal to fall for a cute girl, because, that’s what boys do.

        I can see myself more on Natsuhi than on Subaru though.

        The Mo0nDOgg
  1. Subaru is really asking for it when he hid inside that jumping block… despite what Miho told him to do, he should just ignore it and attend the match like normal. Like you said, everyone in the school already knows that he coaches the girl team… so why not?

    Serapita
    1. This anime is about Subaru digging his own grave with Tomoka. And as Subaru’s romantic love for Tomoka grows, one can hear millions of child welfare advocates facepalm…

      TheM0onDOgg
  2. Funny how Tomoka save Subaru the first time. She’s like a “bro”. An cute adorable “bro”, anyway.

    Also, why does Tomoka wear a sexy nightgown at her age? Do her parents let her wear that on her sleep? Cause that’s kind of weird. It really bugs me that she wears that while the other girls wear pajamas.

    fragb85
  3. Haha, the production animator is trying they best to screw Subaru. Trying hardest to make him a lolicon criminal. If this is the path this anime is taking, I’m all in.

    Banzai to loli

    lkaze
    1. In cooking headdresses, like chef’s hat or a piece cloth are worn for sanitary purposes. It prevents sweat or maybe a piece of hair from contaminating the food that is being prepared. So its not really a Japanese thing as it is a cooking thing.

      fragb85
    2. Certain things are the same no matter what anime you watch. They are elements of any anime at some point. Like the head cloth when cooking or cleaning, the dreaded japanese cold that is so bad it knocks folks out, curry on a bed of rice, school festivals, beach episodes, and so on.

      Karmafan
  4. Sigh, the Subaru abuse is getting a bit too strong in this episode. Still, overall, it was a good episode. We get to see the cast finally work together as a complete unit. One question is, what next? There’s still 6 more episodes.

    x
  5. Yeah I got that dumb and dumber feel toward the end to. I ended the episode with “what the hell was that I just watched”. I feel like we better get a grand sceene dealing with Subaru’s escape. If it’s business as usual next episode it’ll feel unfinished. This could turn out really good though. Great potential.

    Breedo

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