First Impressions / To LOVE-Ru

「ルンの突撃告白タイム」 (Run no Totsugeki Kokuhaku Taimu)
“Run’s Confession Assault Time”

Episode at a Glance:
Thanks to Lala’s invitation, Rito heads to a water park as the sole guy in a large group of girls. At the pool, Rito enjoys staring at Haruna, while Run is determined to get him to look at her instead. After several failed attempts to do so, Run starts seeing the other girls as rivals and targets them instead. Unfortunately, all her attempts to embarass the other girls only end up victimizing Rito, so she resorts to using space piranhas to do her bidding. However, Lala’s space weaponry stops Run, causing her to apologize and admit she did all those things because of Rito. Everyone misunderstands this as Rito’s fault though, so he says he has nothing to do with Run, causing her to become depressed.

After wandering aimlessly around and taking advantage of a stupid Hikari, Run mistakes Honekawa-sensei as an idol scout and tries to become one, thinking it would make Rito come to her. Run then trains for a bit, but feels inadequate as an idol, so further misunderstandings have her thinking that she has to use her body to succeed. Meanwhile, Haruna wonders where Run went and tells Rito that she probably likes him, so what he said earlier probably shocked her. Hearing this, Rito decides to look for Run and finds her being abused by some strangers who made her buy drinks for them. Standing up for her, Rito gets punched in the process, but Lala takes care of everything with her oversized water gun. Seeing this, Run asks Lala why she helped her, so she explains that it’s only natural to save her friends.

As everyone leaves for the day, Run apologizes for everything, as done Rito for saying too much earlier. The others then comment on how reliable Rito turned out to be, making Run realize what good people they all are. She also feels that her love battle has just begun, but she won’t lose.

 

Next Episode:
「旧校舎の幽霊」 (Kyukousha no Yuurei)
“Ghost of the Old School Building”

Impressions:
Seeing as we’re now sixteen episodes in, and over halfway through the series, it was only a matter of time before we saw the obligatory beach/pool/swimsuit episode. Rather than simply being a pure fan-service type of episode though, I liked how they kept things focused on an underlying theme, which in this case happened to be Run’s pursuit of Rito. The flashbacks of her stalker-like attempts were pretty amusing to watch, especially the one with Rito pissing all over the place after she surprised him in the bathroom. Why he would run away and keep urinating is beyond me though, but it’s probably why I found it amusing. A swimsuit episode like this wouldn’t be complete though unless they got all the girls involved, which luckily they did, including a short scene with Konjiki no Yami, who we haven’t seen much of lately. It looks like that’ll change in the next episode though, so I’m quite looking forward to that.

As for Run, it was fun watching her pursue Rito “ambitiously” at the start, but when she started getting depressed as a supposed failed idol, I actually felt sorry for her a bit. I realize that it was just a joke about her being washed up, resorting to sleeping with managers/producers, and basically selling her body to get by, but that’s a pretty grey area to me, which I don’t find all that amusing. It’s not from personal experiences or anything though, but simply the fact that it’s not funny anymore when a girl looks seriously depressed, has to resort to such things, and even gets abused by strangers. Thankfully, Rito stepped in and saved poor Run, putting a smile back on her face.

In short, things got a little “too real” for me this week, which was reminiscent of some sensitive subjects touched upon in Kodomo no Jikan. While I thought Kodomo no Jikan was a good comedic series that touched well on very real, yet controversial matters, it’s not quite what I want to see in To LOVE-Ru, so I’m hoping everything’s back to usual next time and the sillier comedy returns, which should be the case.

Addendum: Added a couple of full-length shots of Yami (Pic 1, Pic 2) and one of the girls for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.

 

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)
– Run (ルン) / Ooura Fukuya (大浦 冬華)
– Motemizu Hikari (弄 光) / Namikawa Daisuke (浪川 大輔)
– 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)
– Kotegawa Yui (古手川 唯) / Nadzuka Kaori (名塚 佳織)
– Konjiki no Yami (金色の闇) / Fukuen Misato (福圓 美里)
– Peke (ペケ) / Arai Satomi (新井 里美)
– Honekawa-sensei (骨川先生) / Asou Tomohisa (麻生 智久)
– Companion A (ツレA) / Adzuma Masataka (我妻 正崇)
– Companion B (ツレB) / Takahashi Kenji (高橋 研二)
– Man (男) / Konno Jun (金野 潤)
– Shopkeeper (店員) / Matsuo Daisuke (松尾 大亮)

24 Comments

  3. I wonder where this is going as Lala is engaged to Rito and loves him, Haruna loves Rito, and Rito likes BOTH Haruna and Lala but really favors Haruna. So how will this series end without someone getting their heart broken? Personally I wanna see a RitoXLala outcome.

    Splash
    Reply

  6. I’m so sorry for Run-chan, I like her the most and she got such a bad past, hopefully Rito will make her happy even when she cant get him ( I like Haruna and Lala too but i would favor when Run would get him. )

    Danny
    Reply

  7. Even thou Run-Chan is a half/half I always like her alot, more than Lala or Haruna, my favorite top 3 is always the Class Rep, Run-Chan, and a draw between Mika and Yami.

    Mike
    Reply

  8. can’t wait till we c the last episode cus the series is running out of spark if u ask me cus most of the things we saw on the past episode has already been on the manga.

    Tag_this_Bitch!
    Reply

  14. Rito is one lucky guy. all those girls are after him and his only problem is which one to choose. I am sure Rito and Lala will find a way to deepen their relationship while Rito still maintains his relationship with the other girls. Whoever wins Rito in the end is still up in the air. But is he like the only desirable guy in that town or something? why the hell is all these girls after him when there are surely cooler guys out there. Btw, is rito and his sister non-blood related? i think i skipped that chapter in the manga.

    xdotx
    Reply

  16. The logical thing for Rito to do is to marry Lala, become Emperor of the Galaxy (or was it the universe?), then marry the rest of his harem. I’m guessing galactic emperors can do that without too much opposition.

    But of course this is anime, and Rito is dumb as a brick.

    nobody important
    Reply

  18. MAN!! and i was stoned like a motherF@#ker when i peeped this ,,THEN it got to the depressing failed idol part, i was like WHAT SHOW IS THIS hahahaah.. i thought it was cool

    BROOKLYN otaku
    Reply

  23. @GrimaH:
    Honekawa-sensei wasn’t trying to take advantage of Run there if that’s what you’re thinking. The teacher was actually more confused about Run’s misunderstandings than anything else and in that particular scene, Run was simply depressed. She was not “offering” herself to him, although I can see how it may look like that!

    divine
    Reply

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