To Love-ru Darkness: it’s body-licking good…
What They Say:
When junior princesses Nana and Momo transfer into Earth School where big sister Lala can keep an eye on them, things SHOULD be smooth sailing. In addition to sister drama, Yami, the Golden Darkness, enters the scene with all the subtleness of a supernova, along with an army of possessed high school students! All of which is certain to make Rito’s life suck more than a black hole at the family picnic. Unless, of course, a certain semi-demonic princess will open a can of Develukean Whoop Ass! It’s “Wham, bam, thank you, Space Ma’am” time once again in To loveru Darkness!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
During swimming class, Mea feels dejected about the outcome of Azenda’s battle. She’s tried to convince Yami to revert back to being a weapon, but Yami’s convinced that there’s more to life than fighting – an argument that seems to have struck a chord with Mea, and when Nana is later nearly run over by a truck, Mea’s instinctive response – to try and protect her friend – surprises even her…
Short review, this week – mainly as, after a few weeks where I could claim with a straight face that plot was taking preference over fanservice, this week sees the usual order restored with a fanservice spectacular. There is still some plot here, as Mea’s move to the ‘good’ side continues as she discovers the power of friendship (and sexual naughtiness, naturally), but for the most part this episode is about licking: Nana and Mea being licked by a variety of animals, Haruna and Rito being given the tentacle treatment by some rather large tentacle beasts, and Rito (in genderswapped Riko form) getting a thorough once-over from Mea.
Which would all be great if that was the DVD or Blu-ray release, but as it’s the broadcast version, what we get is a lot of inconvenient censorflare. At this point I’d usually give off about how annoying this can be, but it’s a complaint we’ve all heard before, so I’ll not bother repeating it.
If have to say, while I’m not remotely surprised at Mea’s gradual change of heart (the show’s opening sequence hints at it fairly strongly, for starters), I’m quite enjoying how it’s playing out, and how it’s not solely based on her relationship with Yami, who continues to be the soft-spoken, emotionless enigma. There’s quite a contrast between the two ‘sisters’, and with Mea showing a large dose of curiosity about what’s involved in interacting with others, she’s by far the more interesting one to watch.
Momo, meanwhile, continues trying to manipulate Rito’s ever-growing collection of girls into her planned harem – a noble motive, perhaps, but one that she’s not really having much success with yet. As a plan she can pull off it’s looking doomed to failure, as much by Rito’s general cluelessness as anything else; but as a plan that the show milks mercilessly to generate fanservice opportunities (that it can then censor back out), it works for me.
In Summary:
To Love-ru Darkness’s most plot-light and service-heavy episode so far. I’d rather have the plot (I swear!), but I’ve always been partial to fanservice as well, and even accounting for the broadcast-version editing this episode delivers quite well on its promise. The show continues to be an enjoyable guilty pleasure.
Content Grade: B+
Streamed by: The Anime Network (North America), Anime On Demand (UK & Ireland)
Review Equipment:
17” Apple MacBook Pro, 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.8.2
