Crouching Eruna, Hidden Treasure.
What They Say:
Episode #8: “Unidentified Treasure”
During the annual treasure hunt for new students, Eruna finds herself paired up with Otone, who seems rather aloof and unwilling to cooperate.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
You know, if Eruna was a typical male lead all of her horndog behavior would be terribly offensive. As it stands her cute girl identity is the only thing keeping her from ending up on a sex offender list. She starts this episode shamelessly propositioning fellow students to join her ‘club.’ Most of the girls do the correct thing and run the opposite direction.
Luckily matters soon turn to the matters of a school treasure hunt. Eruna practices her treasure hunting by putting her gaming skills to the test in Seisa’s room. (I love the pixel Eruna navigating the RPG menus.) Seisa’s maid puts a stop to it and Seisa makes Eruna a deal, if she can win the contest she’ll give Eruna a free pass to message her shoulders… and only her shoulders she clarifies. The hunt is on!
Everyone is paired up with a partner for the competition. Eruna ends up paired off with Otone, much to her delight. Otone is less than delighted and is determined to not actually participate. Eruna has no problem fielding the challenges at the check points single handedly, and joined by a mecha-Bimi she’s firmly in the lead when Otone storms off by herself. Ereuna, concerned about her classmate, wanders off deep in to the forest after her, dropping her phone and failing down a cliff. Seisa notices Eruna’s GPS has stopped moving and takes off after her.
Otone finds Eruna first and her demeanor changes once again to concerned. She invites Eruna to her secret cabin in the woods for tea. What follows is an extended scene of the girls bonding over tea and making cute faces at each other. Now I understand Otone, she’s an extreme tsundare, not a girl with split personalities! How typical! Just before everything can drown in cute, mecha-bimi goes out of control and we discover where last week’s animation budget went. Otone and Eruna manage to escape harm by working together while Seisa witnesses the new friendship take hold.
Eruna and Otone come in last. (I’m sensing a trend of failure here.) Otone almost wanders off again but is welcomed and congratulated by the upper-classmen. Eruna asks Otone if she’d like to join her club and Otone finally agrees. While Otone might have cheered up, Seisa looks depressed once again. Good job Eruna!
In Summary:
Eruna manages to finally score her first maiden for her harem! I still don’t like Otone, but then again she seems to fit in with the group of kids who are extremely off putting in some aspect. None of the core gang are exactly perfect in behavior or attitudes and while it adds to their character it also makes me not want to root for them most of the time. The overload of cute during the tea party was almost my breaking point before all hell broke loose. Some nice action makes up for the lackluster previous episode, and Eruna is perky as ever, even if her behavior is starting to push into bad taste.
Episode Grade: B
Streamed by: Funimation
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS 10.10.3, via Safari 8.0.4, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.
