First Impressions / To LOVE-Ru

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

Episode at a Glance:
Having made his presence known across the globe, Gid is attacked by the local army, so he displays his ability to destroy the planet in a blink of an eye if he wanted to. With the army not wanting to provoke him, they decide to back off. On board his spaceship, Gid reminds Lala of the promise he made with Rito about becoming the universe’s greatest man, but Lala asks him to not bring a normal earthling up to his standards. Gid then sends Zastin out to convey a message to Rito about his test—a game to see if Rito can reach his ship before sunset tomorrow. In support of Rito, Zastin goes on to explain that there will likely be obstacles in Rito’s way, and should he fail, Gid will destroy the Earth. With Rito pondering this predicament and ignoring phone calls, Mikado surprisingly comes by saying that Gid always does what he says he will, and asks Rito to give the test a shot since she likes Earth. After receiving some encouragement from Saruyama and his parents, Rito gets a phone call from Haruna and decides to meet her at the park later on.

Meanwhile, Lala continues to try and talk her father out of this, but he claims he gave Rito a chance to save Earth and that he has to make him take responsiblity for laying a hand on his daughter. Meeting with Haruna, Rito finds out that she believes he’s been charmed by Lala after hearing his confession to her; however, he tells her that’s not the case and tries to confess to Haruna, seeing as tonight might be the last night on Earth. Unable to do so, Rito tells Haruna that he’ll run for everyone’s sake tomorrow and will convey his true feelings to her if he can pass Gid’s trial. Happy to hear this, Haruna encourages Rito, which helps calm his shaken nerves.

The next day, Rito sets out as part of the Gid’s game with everyone in the world looking on. Determined to change, Rito runs towards the Deviluke spaceship. During this time, Yui seeks Mikado’s help after noticing a loophole in Gid’s conditions for the game. While Rito is feeling physically capable in light of Haruna’s encouragement last night, he finds himself under the attack of plants fired from Gid’s ship. Mikado however then comes racing along with Saruyama and Yui, the latter of which reveals that Gid never said Rito couldn’t be helped to the destination. With Rito relieved about the support, the four of them continue onwards through Gid’s obstacles.

 

Next Episode:
「ララ」 (Rara)
“Lala”

Impressions:
Wow, that was a surprisingly touching episode of To LOVE-Ru. While not overly moving, I would have never expected something like this given how things have gone so far. I couldn’t help but feel bad for Rito literally having the weight of the world on his shoulders, with its destruction pending should he fail to pass Gid’s game. With all the quiet scenes from everyone’s perspectives, I got swept into that depressing feeling going around, so it was nice to see supporters in the form of Mikan and Saruyama give some words of encouragement.

The big scene in this episode though had to be the one between Rito and Haruna. Seeing as they already know how they feel about one another, I find it “frustratingly amusing” that the Rito opted to say that he’ll convey his true feelings if he can pass Gid’s game instead of confessing on what might be the world’s last night. Now is it just me or was that an implicit confession in itself? While it makes the other person want to give more support so that they can hear what they already know, it always bugs me because there’s still the possibility they’ll just end up bottling up their feelings inside. Or in this case, just dying flat out! This bit is used in dramas as well, and always seems to make me want to pull my hair out when I hear it.

Mini rant aside, the ending gave a sense of hope with Yui noticing a loophole in Gid’s challenge and deciding to help Rito since the Deviluke ruler never said it wasn’t allowed. The next episode shows a Ren and Yami getting involved as well, so it looks like all of Rito’s friends will pull together in a hope-filled finale. The preview doesn’t sound very promising though, with Lala bidding farewell to everyone and shown crying, so there’s still a possibility that things won’t go well. With that said, I don’t know how I would take a conclusion where Lala has to leave everyone after the Earth is saved. On one side, it would be good because it’s unexpectedly sad, but on the other side, it would just be a bad ending period. If things do end this way, I’d consider it the most surprisingly ending out of the shows I’m currently covering, but I really don’t think they’d leave us with such a depressing conclusion. In any case, they’ve done a good job with the preview to keep me guessing.

 

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)
– 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)
– Sairenji Haruna (西連寺 春菜) / Yahagi Sayuri (矢作 紗友里)
– Saruyama (猿山) / Yoshino Hiroyuki (吉野 裕行)
– Kotegawa Yui (古手川 唯) / Nadzuka Kaori (名塚 佳織)
– Mikado Ryouko (御門 涼子) / Jou Masako (城 雅子)
– Momioka Risa (籾岡 里沙) / Yuzuki Ryouka (柚木 涼香)
– Announcer (アナウンサー) / Yuzuki Ryouka (柚木 涼香)
– Yuuki Mikan (結城 美柑) / Hanazawa Kana (花澤 香菜)
– Peke (ペケ) / Arai Satomi (新井 里美)
– Pilot (パイロット) / Konno Jun (金野 潤)
– Pilot (パイロット) / Nakanishi Naoya (中西 尚也)

30 Comments

  6. bet ya money that Show Spoiler ▼

    Raso
    Reply

  9. Is someone smelling Urusei Yatsura in here? Because I do. Exactly the same setup as the beggining and the end of UY: the idiot must won the alien challenge or else, bye-bye Earth. Sum it up that Lala is as annoying as Lum, and voilá! The only saving grace (one that have supported the series up to now) is that the secondary cast is allowing the idiot (aka Rito) some hope.

    SeedStriker
    Reply

  10. Rito…huh

    bye-bye Earth 🙂

    After all the craziness they put out in this series, they just had to go out & put it on a whole other level of sickness by having Rito save the world. If he can save the world then I bet my hamster can do the same.

    Megas
    Reply

  12. @moomoo

    Yeah.I always wanted lala with rito. But rito is a fucking boring human. So for a boring man, a boring woman. Dammit, there is a beautiful, clever and funny alien in your bedroom. It’s a show about space, adventure…… Something I want in fucking life. But rito want the housewife. (Just like tenchi with ryoko in tenchi muyo) Love is strange.

    Cafard
    Reply

  14. the ending is kinda weird it doesnt follow the manga. but at least they made a series out of it. guys u better check out onemanga for more great manga series( btw i aint a member of that site)

    bigger_is_better
    Reply

  25. As Seed Striker said, i felt the smell of Urusei Yatsura in To LOVEru from first episode, being a UY fan since 1994. I see this as a homage to YU, not a copy by any means. Lala is not jealous
    as often as Lamu was, she has her quirky funny space-tech thingies to laugh at, her own UFO, and most episodes have similar counterparts in UY.
    If you are younger anime fan, and haven`t seen Urusei Yatsura,
    i recommend to check it out. That anime is very important for development of love comedy type of anime, with some light ecchi
    flavour to it. As a long-time anime lover, i really like
    To LOVEru for what it is.

    Kari Manninen
    Reply

  27. Most likely they’ll be integrating the plotline that happens in Chapter 48 of the manga: In that one, Gid also comes back for more or less the same reasons, and Lala attempts to erase everyone’s memory of her in order to start things over with Rito. If so, they can stretch that a bit more.

    Jay
    Reply

  28. The whole “smells like Urusei Yatsura” was drawn from the very first episodes and that kept me up to ep. 3, as UY is my fav series. To LOVEru grew kind of weary on me for any number of resons I guess, but I went ahead with only these last episodes and it feels like their ending it just like the UY Kankentsuhen (final chapter) movie, at least as a homage. It’s nice to see that Lum & company are not forgotten. Check them out if you can, they’ll seem a bit outdated, but they are the original “Boy meets Girl” story…with a twist of sci/fi.

    kazekaeru
    Reply

  29. Chillpill: i meant thet in many episodes have similar ingredients in the plot, while not being exactly like. They`re too many to list everything here, but if we say the situation setup in the school is very like. Lala/Lamu has very confident and free-minded attitude to everyone, all boys in school are charmed by her & very jealous to Rito, Rito/Ataru have still hots for his old flame Haruna/Shinobu, School nurses are very like despite this one being alien doctor instead of shinto miko, Lala/Lamu have somewhat dangerous cooking abilities, both have electrifying bodies, Little dirty old man Pricipal/Buddhist monk Cherry, Lala/Lamu`s father is The King of respective planets, first a small gaki, other giant, Lala/ Lamu have old friends(sexy girls), and enemies which have superpowers from home planet, and so on endlessly. Following eps. have similar ones in UY: 1,3,4,9,10,12,17,19,21,25. Don`t ask me to name eps in UY, but i remember them clearly, and feel when i see them in new form. The staff in ToLOVEru can their stuff.

    Kari Manninen
    Reply

  30. If this is how’s its gonna be then I don’t want another season. After episode 1 they completed lose sight of the manga and just do their own thing, They should have extended the anime to about 60 episodes and included EVERYTHING from the manga.

    Me, who else?
    Reply

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