Love Lab – 11
Read this post or Maki will haunt you forever
Since last week was a series of skits, and not much to write about, I skipped that post. But this week, we’re back with the continuing story. So I’ll quit watching shoujo ai shows for a while and we can talk about Love Lab!
Spring May Bring Love, But Summer is When Things Get Hot
Riko and Satoshi square off
We knew Riko was getting sent back to cram school, because her grades were so bad. So she’s going to use the opportunity to get more information about the questions that the student council is being asked. Unfortunately, she’s still unable to remember Satoshi’s confession, and he’s trying to forget everything in their past. It’s obvious that he still has a bit of a crush on her. But Riko does find out that a girl from Fuji with long silky black hair is popular at Satoshi’s middle school.
The normal reaction to Natsuo’s plans
Of course, this makes Maki happy, and starts her unrealistic planning circuit in overdrive. Luckily for Maki, her older sister reads her silly plans (which Riko also rejects), and appeals to their father on her behalf, saying that Maki needs more real world socialization. I think that’s definitely an idea that noone would argue with. So he agrees to send her to an accelerated cram school, and, well, you know what’s coming.
“Your keeping her away from boys is making her crazy!”
Back to Where the Boys Are
Someone’s messed with the popular girl the wrong way
I just love using that title, but the show makes it easy with such a big divide. But the cram school program is at the same school that Riko goes to, AND the accelerated program is with “Yan-san”. After a whole boatload of bad first impressions, including the dreaded “two first or last names” problem for Maki and Yan, and everyone thinking that Yan has now violated Maki, we do get some chickens coming home to roost with Riko’s lies about being popular. If Maki keeps going to the cram school, it’s sure she’ll find out that Riko isn’t as ‘popular’ as she’s said.
I remember underground newspapers when I was in high school, they were fun.
But what to do about the love questions that keep coming in the comment box? They’re getting some answers for them, but no way to communicate. But that’s where the Newspaper Society comes in with their underground newsletter. They’ve actually put a section in called “Love Lab” (imagine that!) and want the Student Council to supply the content. I’m sure the teachers aren’t going to like it much, tho.
Back in the story, and back to some pretty funny gags. I really hope we get more at the cram school, because that’s definitely the place where the most interesting relationships are playing off of each other. I did kind of feel that the fan gag this episode went a bit too long, tho, and wasted a little too much time, but back in the good column, I really liked Natsuo’s older sister intervening on her behalf. That had a really nice feel to it, and Natsuo definitely needs more than Riko to keep her in line. But Riko’s got her own problems at the cram school now, and it’s almost a certainty that Natsuo will find out that Riko’s been only pretending to have so many boyfriends.
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
The gags were the best part. It’s hilarious that Riko always manages to catch on to Maki’s absurd delusions and criticize them. Like her sister pointed out, the fault lies with her father being too overprotective and that’s why she barely has any skills with the guys. Sometimes you’ve got to take risks.
I feel a huge amount of of pity for Jan because of Maki’s misunderstanding and I hardly like his character. Strange… He’ll probably spend every day looking over his shoulder from now on.
Things are beginning to head south for Riko. Bad enough that Sayo knows her façade even though she’s pretty much keeping it under wraps but someone uninformed like Satoshi will blow everything out of the water. Those two butt heads like a couple of mountain goats but I can see there’s a good chance those two will end up together.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Yan’s the guy who just can’t catch a break. And for all intents and purposes he’s a normal-ish guy, if a bit of a conceited guy.
I don’t know if Maki’s delusions are any more out there than Tomoko’s from WataMote, but their personalities are totally different, and Maki is able to carry herself better. And it shows what the value of a good friend is: Riko is a grounding force for Maki, even if you could argue that she also ends up encouraging Maki further with her silliness.
I wonder what effect the revelation about Riko would have on her friendships in the Student Council. At this point, with only 2 episodes left, I don’t think it will do anything to tear them apart, but I think there will be a big apology coming. And I think it would be completely out of character for Maki or Suzu to get too mad at her. I mean, look at how fast Suzu went back to being a Nana-chan fangirl. Sayo would just get out the popcorn for the show, maybe twist the knife a little just to make her feel a little worse, and Eno would probably be embarrassed and pragmatic “Well, you shouldn’t have lied, but we can’t do anything about that now.”
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Oh, and my favorite gag of the episode was everyone making fun of Eno’s hair flipping.