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

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Rikka battles her sister, imagining it to be an epic battle when in fact it is her using an umbrella against Tōka and her ladle. Tōka lands actual blows on Rikka, and Rikka’s fantasy scenario dissolves around her. Yuuta shields Rikka from further blows from Tōka, telling Rikka’s sister that sometimes reality is hard to accept despite Tōka’s insistence that real life is what it means to grow up. Rikka flees, causing Yuuta to try to follow, but she eludes him. He finds his friends still at the beach having fun with fireworks and the like, but none of them know where Rikka is. When he goes to the grandparent’s home, Rikka’s not there either. Yuuta figures out Rikka’s plan and races to the train station, barely catching the train Rikka boards.

Yuuta sits with Rikka, who’s surprised that he caught up to her. She’s returning home since the barrier preventing her from reaching the Unseen Horizon is too strong. Rikka wants to know more about Yuuta becoming the Dark Flame Master, so he recounts how in middle school, he felt alienated, even from his friends, as he no longer related to them. Seeing Yuuta’s reflection in the train’s glass window, Rikka takes off her eye patch and meets his eyes there, telling Yuuta that they have a new bond. Meanwhile, back at the grandparent’s home, Nibutani gets Yuuta’s text telling where he and Rikka are. She assumes romance, though the naive Kurin doesn’t get it, and Nibutani is stunned that Kurin really doesn’t get it. Tōka gets a text from Yuuta as well.

Rikka doesn’t have her key, so Yuuta invites her to his place. His family is gone, and though Rikka suspects the supernatural, in reality they are gone for normal reasons. Yuuta gets another call from Makoto, who’s gone for a late night walk with Kurin, wanting advice and suggesting that Yuuta and Rikka being alone together might lead to other things. Yuuta rejects this idea since Rikka is so heavily into the chuunibyou stuff, but the seed is planted in his mind. Rikka checks out Yuuta’s Dark Flame Master gear and is impressed by it all. Her stomach growls, so Yuuta offers to prepare her something, but when he brings out a tomato, Rikka says she’d rather face an epic boss that eat that. Yuuta suggests continence store food, which pleases Rikka since Tōka won’t allow her to eat anything but her food.

After getting some easy to eat food like onigiri and some fried chicken bites, they eat together on a nearby bench, Rikka loving the experience. Before they leave, Rikka starts seeing Yuuta a bit differently. Back at his apartment, he lends her some of his clothes to sleep in, and she finds she enjoys the smell since they smell of him, causing Yuuta to blush. He gets her to bed and is about to go himself, but he finds that Rikka has gotten back up and is watching something romantic on TV because she can’t sleep. Rikka is flustered about things she’s feeling but doesn’t understand. She asks Yuuta to close his eyes and he thinks she might kiss him, but instead, she draws a mandala on his hand to increase his power and form a new bond with him. They go to their separate beds, where Rikka struggles with her feelings. The next morning, she goes to the sleeping Yuuta and gently pushing his hair aside with her fingers.

Thoughts/Review:

Ah, vanilla romance. Love it, love it, LOOOOV-VE it. ^_^

Nibutani and Makoto may have been clued in on the signs that Yuuta and Rikka were developing feelings for each other (even if Yuuta and Rikka didn’t recognize them), but they were completely wrong on the type of romance, assuming it to be normal teens in the grips of raging hormones rather than a girl with a mentality of someone much younger, and a boy who’s not seeing the girl in terms of someone he’d like to sleep with.

Regardless, Yuuta now is aware of the potential of a romantic liaison between himself and Rikka, and for her part, Rikka is aware that she’s feeling things for Yuuta. That being said, one would think that both of them, having an apparent wide experience with anime/manga/light novels/games/whatever, would be more aware of the romantic aspects. After all, even in shounen action titles, there’s a romantic element, even if it doesn’t get heavily explored. I guess that since I was KEENLY aware of girls at 15, I have a hard time understanding how a girl wouldn’t be as aware of guys.  (Obviously, Yuuta was aware of girls, since he’d been attracted to Nibutani at the start.)

Yuuta’s and Rikka’s non-date date was very sweet though, and ever so full of vanilla goodness. I liked how a series so full of tropes and parodies has a scene with a high school boy and girl casually feeding each other and enjoying each other’s company without trying to read things into it. Granted, the production team had to get that element introduced in order to properly get our couple on the romance road, but it was still a refreshing moment seeing Yuuta and Rikka be themselves and enjoy the moments for what they were.

Speaking of romance, Makoto’s crush on Kurin is sweet but also rather funny. She doesn’t have clue one about how he feels about her, not that he’s said anything. I’d like to see those two get together as well.

Sanae and Nibutani continue to provide the bulk of the laughs for me. It is just hilarious to think that somehow, both girls managed to write insults on the other girl’s back with sunscreen without either of them knowing it was done to them.

In the end, this was a very sweet episode, refreshing in how it is handling the awakening romance between Rikka and Yuuta. I’m looking forward to seeing where everything goes.