Aho Girl – 11

「決戦! 必殺! アホガール」 (Kessen! Hissatsu! Aho Girl)
“Final Battle! Decisive Blow! Aho Girl”

There are many character on this show that face the misfortune of being associated with Yoshiko and Akuru, but I feel the worst for Ruri. If it wasn’t bad enough that she is a jack of no trades and a master of none, she’s constantly treated like a helpless pet by Akuru. Her situation is even worse than Yoshiko’s because at least Yoshiko has the talent to do the stupid things she enjoys; Ruri hasn’t even been shown to have the most basic of skills. What makes it worse is that she does want to be better and tries her damnedest to find something she excels at to no avail.

What makes her segment end on a positive note is how Yoshiko takes on the role of her mentor. She is not a good mentor by any means, but there are points under her care where she genuinely wants Ruri to push past her struggles to find something she can call her talent. She has as little faith in her as Akuru does for both of the girls, but she’s the only person so far who has told her to keep working towards finding something she’s good at. Underneath her constant desire to play and goof off, Yoshiko’s role in the segment does hint at the capacity she does have to hold compassion and understanding, and isn’t just thinking of how advantageous things are for her.

The banana frappachino battle struck the right chords with me as the funniest segment of the episode. Aoi Yuuki’s vocal shift to a no-nonsense low pitch in order to portray a vengeful Yoshiko had me cracking up as did the serious tone they gave to Yoshiko clearing through a school of delinquents as payback for trashing the last banana frappachino available. It has been forever since we’ve seen Ryuuichi with a more important role, and I feel bad that he’s been underutilized as we keep only seeing him for a couple seconds in these recent episodes, but it was good to see him a little bit in this segment.

The final skit was a funny diversion from the human stories with Yoshiko’s dog getting sidetracked by humans getting into trouble while he’s on his journey to give Sayaka’s dog a flower. It was silly, but I laughed when one of the mothers overlooked her kid almost getting hit by a car, yet freaking out about the dog holding her kid up. Whereas many of the people who encountered the dog were grateful, here you have this lady chewing out the dog for a misunderstanding. The episode was effective in giving the dog a sense of personality though with his positive traits coming out with his selflessness and his quiet urge for Ruri to overcome her personal strife. It’ll be sad to see a show this bright and silly come to an end soon since I grew to love the show quickly, but I’m just glad it was able to keep its quality high throughout its air time.