中二病でも恋がしたい！戀/ Chu-2 byo demo KOI ga shitai! Ren
Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren 08 anime review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

The class trip over, Rikka is showing off her new parasol to Kumin when Sanae comes into the club room, sans her twin-tails. After school, the club spies on Sanae as she sits on a bench, waiting for the “real” Mori Summer to arrive. A girl arrives, wearing some Mori Summer stuff, who addresses Sanae as “Sanya”. Under the guise of “purification”, the girl has Sanae close her eyes, before she grabs a digital camera and snaps a lot of pictures of Sanae. Their conversation turns to Nibutani, the “fake” Mori Summer, where the polite insults of Nibutani eventually causes her to snap, come out of her hiding place, and face this stranger girl claiming to be Mori Summer.

Nibutani goes off on this “Mori Summer” girl, even thwarting Sanae’s attempt to defend the other girl. Nibutani says she hates fake nice girls who aren’t nice at all. The girl wonders why Nibutani hides her true identity if she is in fact Mori Summer. Nibutani doesn’t have an answer for this. The group, sans Sanae, go to Nibutani’s house, where she tries to search for evidence beyond the Mori Summer accoutrements, which the other girl also has some of. With no proof that she’s the real Mori Summer, the meeting between the girls the following day ends up with Nibutani giving up to the surprise of the group.

At school, Yuuta asks Nibutani if what she’s doing is the right thing or not. Sanae does her usual attack but Nibutani doesn’t get mad, but simply returns to class. At the club room that afternoon, Kumin expresses concern about Sanae being with that other “scary” girl, whom Kumin believes is in love with Sanae. Consulting with Nibutani on this, Kumin states her opinion that Sanae wants Nibutani to be Mori Summer. Nibutani isn’t convinced until she witnesses the girl waiting outside the school grounds with a picture of Sanae. That night at the shrine, the group decides that Nibutani will have to battle the fake Mori Summer. She’ll need training, but since Rikka’s powers aren’t working, Rikka has Satone brought in to do the job.

With Nibutani absent from school the next day, Sanae is a little down. After school, she’s met by the fake Mori Summer, who tries to score a kiss with Sanae. Sanae cries for her Fake Mori Summer to help her, and Nibutani shows up in her Mori Summer gear. Nibutani challenges the girl to a chuunibyou battle. During the fight, Nibutani acknowledges wishing she could escape the past, but since she created Mori Summer, she won’t allow anyone else to sully the name. Nibutani’s massive attack isn’t good enough and she takes a beating from the other girl. However, seeing the darkness used by the other girl, Sanae steps in to defend Nibutani and defeats the girl. The girl is sent packing when she learns Sanae isn’t as pure as she thought since Sanae has already had her first kiss (accidentally with Nibutani).

Thoughts/Review:

Heh! Well, I called it on “Stalker Chick” for sure.  As I said in episode 6:

As to this Mori Summer website, I have a wild theory. Blog commenter TreeBark pointed out a mysterious girl in the background of a couple of shots (here and here). I keep forgetting to look for her more, but assuming she’s in other background shots, she might be the one running the Mori Summer website since there’s no way Sanae would attempt to pretend to be Mori Summer. We’ll see though.  That might be what gets Nibutani to truly embrace her Mori Summer persona.

Heh!heh!heh! Thanks again to TreeBark for pointing out things I’d screen captured, but hadn’t even paid attention to. ^_^

I was wrong that this would be an ongoing subplot. I will be interested in seeing how Nibutani deals with her Mori Summer persona from here on though. I have to say, she was pretty good as Mori Summer in this episode.

The chuunibyou battle was pretty cool too. ^_^

As to the relationship between Nibutani and Sanae, I’ve long held that theirs is akin to a sisterly relationship. Nibutani, as the older sister type, tries to be mature and the like, but ends up snapping when Sanae pushes too many of her buttons.

Sanae, as the younger sister type, feels it is her obligation to irritate and annoy her older sister as often as possible because it is fun.

Despite their bickering, they both do care about each other a great deal. When push comes to shove, Nibutani wasn’t going to let some weirdo girl take advantage of Sanae by using the Mori Summer name (the only real way to get to Sanae). Transversely, Sanae wasn’t going to let some girl vilely attack Nibutani, especially in the name of Mori Summer. Thus two “sisters” put aside their differences, come together, and defeat a mutual enemy.  I love it. There was a lot of heartfelt stuff here. ^_^

I liked Kumin’s role in this episode. While she has allowed herself to be caught up in this chuunibyou world, she still has a grounding in reality that allowed her to see what no one else could when it came to the stalker girl’s intentions toward Sanae.

I loved that Rikka and Yuuta walked home, holding hands, initiated by Rikka. ^_^

Still, I couldn’t help but notice that when it came to training Nibutani to be Mori Summer again, Rikka was powerless.  I couldn’t help but think of Satone’s story where she sacrificed her love for Yuuta in order to remain in the chuunibyou world.

Speaking of Satone, it appears Rikka learned her lesson regarding trusting Yuuta when it comes to Satone. After all, it was Rikka who suggested Satone be Nibutani’s trainer.

You know, I’ve got to look up Guerzoniansus sometime. I likely missed something, but I’ve no clue what that is (unless it is just something made up by Yuuta in middle school). ^_^;

In the end, a very enjoyable episode centering around Sanae and Nibutani.