中二病でも恋がしたい！/ Chu-2 byo demo KOI ga shitai!
Episode 12 (final)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Rikka visits her father’s grave with her mother, recalling back when her father died. At school, Yuuta is missing Rikka and stops by the club room, where he finds a mysterious, long-haired blond taking up the mandala on the floor. The normal-speaking girl turns out to be Sanae, but Yuuta can’t get over her normal look, nor her addressing him as “Senpai”. Makoto interrupts because something is wrong with Kumin. Heading to her classroom, Yuuta discovers Kumin speaking like Rikka and dressed as Rikka used to dress, complete with eye-patch and bandaged arm. Kumin says that she’s become Rikka’s successor as long as the Dark Flame Master exists, the Tyrant’s Eye must continue. This causes Sanae to think Kumin is cool.

Nibutani and Yuuta give the now cleaned up club room a final inspection and speak of her trying out for the drama club. The club president reminds her of chuunibyou with the way he speaks as if he’s special and knows it. She remarks on how she and Yuuta formed their own ideas on what it was to be a normal high school student, and thus they became that. So maybe they don’t have chuunibyou, but it is something. That night, Yuuta finds out from his sister that the movers cleaned out Rikka’s apartment. He races to the train station, but there are no more trains for the night. However, he does get an e-mail on his phone from Rikka, saying that her family is happy now that she’s acting normal. He realizes he did this to her.

Yuuta finds a letter has been delivered for him from the Dark Flame Master, something he’d done a couple of years ago with the world supposed to be ending in 2012. His letter tells him to never give up and that he has a power because he is special. There’s also an arcade token inside, which Yuuta flips. He then sees Makoto to borrow his bike in order to get to Rikka. On the way, Kumin intercepts him as the Tyrant’s Eye, telling him the message that Rikka left for her. Yuuta learns that Rikka visited Toka after the death of their father, where she observed Yuuta acting out his Dark Flame Master stuff. Now that Yuuta knows Rikka became a chuunibyou because of him, he is even more determined to get to Rikka.

Rikka is struggling with her emotions when Yuuta finally arrives outside her window, all out of breath. Rikka is happy to see him, and she’s pleased when he does his Dark Flame Master routine. Rikka’s grandfather thinks a thief is about as Yuuta gets Rikka to come out into his arms. A cop shows up, so Makoto and Nibutani distract him by her screaming and him pretending to be a molester. Kumin and Sanae are there with Sanae’s family’s limo and driver, giving Rikka her eye patch and shoes before being joined by Nibutani to restrain Rikka’s grandfather. Rikka gets on Yuuta’s bike and they are off, chased by the cops. They make it unmolested to the beach, where Yuuta does a chuunibyou bit that Rikka often did. In their shared experience, Rikka is finally able to see her father one last time and say goodbye. As the dawn starts to break, the cops show up, so Rikka and Yuuta are off again. Sometime later, Yuuta steps out into the cold night air of his apartment balcony and finds Rikka on the rail, asking him if he wants to see her eye.

Thoughts/Review:

Man, am I ever glad I got into this anime series, and all thanks to a cute image I found showing the girls of the series in preschool form.

Starting with the small stuff, I speculated last episode that Sanae might be an ojousama, and this episode pretty much confirmed it. After all, her family not only as a limo, but a chauffeur as well, thus allowing Sanae to help her “Master” along with her friends when the time was right.

Sanae certainly was startling as a normal girl with long hair. She’s actually quite pretty, and as a normal girl, pleasant to get along with, though I admit, her suddenly being respectful and using the term “senpai” made me chuckle since it is so out out character. However, that’s not the person Sanae really wants to be, and she quickly shifted from “normal” back to chuunibyou by the end. I was disappointed that we didn’t actually get an explanation on why Sanae became chuunibyou. That said, even as an ojousama, she might find life boring and so while other ojousama’s we’ve come to know have other outlets to channel their energy, Sanae went with a fantasy realm just to have some fun.

Nibutani didn’t actually go chuunibyou this episode, but she did her acting bit in order to allow Yuuta and Rikka to get away from the cop for a bit. I would have liked to have seen a resolution between her and Sanae over the whole Mori Summers thing.

Kumin actually got to shine this episode. She really hasn’t been a senpai-type character despite being a 2nd-year high school student. However, with Rikka having confided in her and her agreeing to become Rikka’s character in order to communicate with Yuuta, Kumin was not only funny, but an important part of the episode since her revealing that Yuuta was the cause of Rikka’s chuunibyou drove him forward to see Rikka again.

Of course, the main thing was the resolution between Yuuta and Rikka. Yuuta’s getting the delayed letter from himself when he was still doing the Dark Flame Master chuunibyou thing would not have worked for me had we not had all the news about the world supposedly coming to an end on December 21st (and if you are reading this, I guess we know the end did not come). Since Yuuta wrote this to his future self because of the world’s potential ending as well as the idea that Yuuta may have outgrown his chuunibyou fantasy, it had the right impact required to get Yuuta to make a decision while not triggering the “BS” alarm. Kudos to Kyo-ani for this.

I have to admit that I chuckled at Yuuta being out of breath while he was trying to first talk with Rikka.  It is a moment of reality that one might not normally expect from a series that often had nutty, comedic moments. Plus, it is one of those moments where Rikka could see his determination to be with her, which was sweet and nice.

Rikka and Yuuta may not have kissed, but that didn’t make the moment that Rikka jumped into Yuuta’s arms any less special.

There was a somewhat subtle moment where Yuuta screams out for Rikka and she responds despite him not being there.  I liked that because since throughout the series, and redoubled after they became a couple, we’ve heard Rikka speak of the bond between them. So in a romantic but fantastic sense, they are bonded in a mystical way.

I also loved the magical moment where Yuuta became the Dark Flame Master to share a chuunibyou moment with Rikka. In the end, she was able to see her father, as she wanted, and she was finally able to say goodbye.

Now that Rikka has resolved the issues with her father’s death, and Yuuta has returned to her (and she to him), I guess that any chuunibyou moments they share from here on out will be for fun.  I’m OK with that.

I’ll have a final thoughts post for this series. For now, I’ll just say that I loved this episode a great deal. Romance, drama, magic of the mind, and a bit of fun all combined into just under 24-minutes.