Who knew that schoolwork would actually be important in this series?
What They Say:
Rikka and Yuta face their low grades, and their club is fingered as the culprit! Rikka begins a new battle with her latest opponent: math! Meanwhile, Dekomori and Nibutani continue to butt heads.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Now that the dynamic of the main group has been properly established, I’ve been wondering where the story will go next. Obviously Nibutani will continue trying to get Dekomori to destroy all evidence of her former chunibyo life, but what about the rest? Their constant antics are always amusing, but there needs to be some story to back it up. This time, we get to see a classic story of the club facing the risk of disbandment if its fearless leader can’t overcome a great trial. In this case, that trial involves passing a simple math test, and Rikka doesn’t stand a chance.
The other three members of the club are relatively irrelevant in this episode. They each serve their respective purpose to some extent, but the real focus is on our two real leads. Although he pretends he has no interest in Rikka, Yuta plays the standard role of a male lead in this kind of story and dedicates himself to supporting her in her endeavors, even though, based on his apparent opinions of his current situation, he would be better off if the club did get disbanded, and he could live the normal high school live he has dreamed of.
Although the series hasn’t done much in the way of specific references in the previous episodes, instead parodying standard tropes a bit more vaguely, this episode kicks the references up a great deal. There are very specific references to anime classics like Evangelion and Gundam, as well as video games like Super Smash Bros. and a less specific JRPG. When actual names and terms are used, there’s some censorship, but it’s all pretty obvious if you know what they’re talking about (or just read Sentai’s convenient video notes), and if that kind of reference humor works for you, they’re all a lot of fun.
Although much of the episode is spent with the club members going about their silly business as usual, the heart of it features Yuta and Rikka one-on-one, trying their best to imbue her with the knowledge she’ll need to keep her club going, and keep her high school life social. After failing to do any amount of work to benefit the school, the stakes seem to be raised, as Rikka’s new requirement is to beat the class average at this test. This means that she and Yuta have to really dedicate themselves like never before, Amusingly, Dekomori turns out to be the top student in her middle school, but she doesn’t really help out the cause by her own choice, instead just proving her unexpected intelligence a few times when prompted.
Although the plot is about studying for a test and keeping a club alive, the real story here is about developing the relationship between Yuta and Rikka, and giving a little insight into how Rikka truly interacts with the rest of the world, and how she feels about it. There’s obviously romantic potential between the two of them, and this is developed pretty strongly here, so much so that even Yuta has to realize it to some degree, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. In a casual comment to her, he also realizes that her social life has essentially been nonexistent, not terribly surprising considering the public persona she displays to people, and his empathy for her situation inspires him to come up with rewards for her each step of the way to make her happier and more determined, even at the cost of drudging up some major chunibyo tendencies of his own.
The outcome of the episode was about how I expected it, but I also expected that Yuta would get a zero on his own test in order to help Rikka beat the class average. I ended up being a little surprised that there was no hint of anyone in their class doing this to help her (specifically, Nibutani would be the other possibility, but that would be far less likely than Yuta). Either way, the very end of the episode had a very sweet note that I hope will lead to more of this romantic development.
In Summary:
It’s another standard and not terribly remarkable episode, but there is definitely some good potential to be had here. There’s some good character development and touches on the background of Rikka and her social life (or lack thereof), and Yuta’s empathy should make for some continued development on their relationship together, making for greater possibility of the eventual romantic element to shine.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: The Anime Network
Review Equipment:
Toshiba Satellite L655-S5191 PSK2CU-1C301U Notebook PC.