What They Say:
Kirino wants her former roommate, Ria, to homestay with her while she is in Japan. Kyousuke can’t understand why she is determined for her former rival to say with her.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Fish out of water stories are a dime a dozen no matter what culture you go into, so it’s always fun seeing it adapted and played out in other countries. Anime certainly has its fare share of it overall, though most end to blend in very quickly. Often what we get is that people from other countries lack any sort of modesty when it comes to their bodies and sexuality – which is hilarious when you consider how most anime characters are displayed – and we get a good dose of that from here as Kyosuke walks through his house and discovers a naked girl standing there. It only gets worse when Kirino comes out of the bath and herself in a towel, only to panic over the girl and to have her towel fall away, sending her into a further panic because of what Kyosuke gets to see.
Ria, as it turns out, was Kirino’s roommate while she was overseas and she did a good, hard sell on her parents to get them to allow her to stay there, though there’s some comical lolicon comments coming from Kirino over it. Ria brings a real sense of fun to the show in a way that hasn’t been there much this season with the eraly scenes taking place in the house. She’s all over Kyosuke eventually in a very playful way, but there’s also the throttling Kirino gives to Ria which is hilarious because of how Kyosuke watches the delightful seen. Even Kirino’s parents are taken in by her and her charms, though her dad is smitten in a way that’s obviously comically awkward yet hilariously fun.
Kirino’s fun in Akihabara comes into play here as well as she shows it off to Ria, who certainly has her own interests there as well. But there’s also something below the surface between the two that does finally come out since Ria couldn’t beat Kirino in a race from the first season and there has to be a rematch of some sort here in order to really clear the air between them. There’s some good fun to be had with it considering the personalities involved, but Kyosuke’s internal monologue during it and his growing support for Kirino during it just too cute for words. The relationship between Ria and Krino is the main focus though and the race for revenge definitely paints a fun picture of how the two are and what defines them through their competitive natures.
In Summary:
Bringing Ria into the season definitely worked nicely as a standalone story for a lot of reasons, but a good part of it is that it does bring some closure to things for both girls. Ria’s not like the other girls in the series in a lot of ways, though she’s still very much written through Japanese eyes, and that difference compared to the others makes her a lot of fun. But the kind of fun that I’ll admit works best only in small doses like this rather than an every episode appearance. The first half is what won me over the most in seeing how she was living with the family for a bit and the kind of impact she had on them while there. They’re small and silly moments filled with misunderstandings, but it’s all material that works well for the people involved.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
