First Impressions / To LOVE-Ru

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

Episode at a Glance:
Overjoyed about the possibility of a ghost haunting the old school building, Lala manages to convince Haruna and the others to go check it out. Knowing that Haruna’s terrified of ghosts, Rito volunteers to come along as well. At the old school building, Rito stumbles upon Konjiki no Yami, who comes here to read old books. Yui later arrives as a representative of the morals committee, when suddenly everyone hears voices telling them to get out. After falling through the floor and being chased by self-playing piano, they eventually run into a huge one-eyed monster. Haruna freaks out a the sight of it though and manages to destroy it with Rito’s head, revealing a group of aliens who have no where to go after losing their jobs back at home. Mikado then arrives out of nowhere and informs the aliens who Lala and Yami are, striking fear in them. She also informs them of an acquaintance of hers who might have jobs for them, so they all leave to check it out.

Meanwhile, a real 400 year old ghost named Oshizu appears in front of Rito and the others, who apparently couldn’t get any sleep while the aliens were around. While Oshizu is relieved that they’re finally gone, Mikado suddenly returns with the aliens and explains that her acquaintance, Tooyama, is converting his alien ghost house business into a space cabaret and no longer requires male employees. Hearing this, Oshizu says that they simply have to become females then, which results in a bunch of female training from her. Tooyama later comes by and sees their “progress“, so he offers them jobs at his cabaret. Some time later, Rito, Lala, Yami, and Mikado decide to pay a visit to the cabaret, where they find Oshizu working as well, and Zastin and his men as customers.

 

Next Episode:
「猿山がお土産」 (Saruyama ga Omiyage)
“Saruyama the Souvenir”

Impressions:
Other than the introduction of Oshizu (who’s played by Noto Mamiko by the way), I didn’t quite know what to expect from this episode, but the first half sure was a riot. I couldn’t stop laughing most of the time when everyone except Lala and Yami was freaking out about ghosts. Speaking of Yami, she’s as cute as ever, much like Risa and Mio found out this time, and I just loved the scene where she ran away with everyone, but wasn’t phased by the sight of a piano playing by itself and chasing after them. The recurring gag that I couldn’t get over though was Yui trying to faint, but waking back up every time because she would hit her head on the ground. Seeing her resort to knocking herself out was the icing on the cake too, as Yui is still one of the funniest characters to watch in my opinion. The only character missing this time around who I would’ve liked to see was Run, but having Yami around more helps balance out the Run episode last week. Unfortunately though, the latter half of the episode wasn’t as amusing, as it basically involved Mikado trying to help the other aliens find a place to work, only to have them try and become females later on with the help of Oshizu. Next episode looks like it’ll be a focused on Saruyama for a change and some cat/human like species, that he delivers a baby for…?

 

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)
– Oshizu (お静) / Noto Mamiko (能登 麻美子)
– Konjiki no Yami (金色の闇) / Fukuen Misato (福圓 美里)
– Mikado Ryouko (御門 涼子) / Jou Masako (城 雅子)
– Kotegawa Yui (古手川 唯) / Nadzuka Kaori (名塚 佳織)
– Momioka Risa (籾岡 里沙) / Yuzuki Ryouka (柚木 涼香)
– Zastin (ザスティン) / Koyasu Takehito (子安 武人)
– Tooyama (トーヤマ) / Sonobe Keiichi (園部 啓一)
– Sawada Mio (沢田 未央) / Chiba Chiemi (千葉 千恵巳)
– Peke (ペケ) / Arai Satomi (新井 里美)
– Alien A (宇宙人A) / Konno Jun (金野 潤)
– Alien B (宇宙人B) / Asou Tomohisa (麻生 智久)
– Alien C (宇宙人C) / Matsuo Daisuke (松尾 大亮)

10 Comments

  5. Does anyone agree with me that this was (in my opinion) the lamest episode out of all of them, and that the next one will be just as lame? If it’s just me, I’ll be quiet about it.

    Robert
    Reply

  10. @ Robert

    Don’t worry, it’s not just you.

    —

    Anyway, here’s my opinion:

    To be honest, I enjoyed the first half of the episode because it was from the manga — something that Xebec seems to continue ignoring time and again. Not to mention, it was nice hearing Mamiko Noto-kawaii-yo as Oshizu (it’s like she’s got voice work in friggin’ everything this season -_-; — not that I mind, of course, since Noto’s one of my favorite seiyuu). However, I agree with you that the second half nixed that and dropped it back into lameness. (Crossdressing aliens? Do not want indeed.) Either way, Oshizu’s been a favorite character of mine, and having Noto voice her just catapulted her up to #3 on my favorite characters list (behind Yui and Yami).

    Anyway, this episode is enjoyable if one turns their brain off before watching it, but it’s not that good if you’ve been reading the manga. Sure, the manga isn’t that plot-driven either, but at least the manga really is funny — in contrast, the anime tries too hard to be funny and comes off as either stupid, unneccesary, an asspull or any combination of the three.

    I did like the appearance of Yami and Yui, though — that salvaged what would have been a sub-par episode for me. Then again, anything with either Yui or Yami in it is good stuff.

    LaGelure
    Reply

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