Inou Battle wa Nichijou-Kei no Naka de Episode 2

So, here we are at episode 2 of Inou Battle wa…Inou. While before we got to know a bit about the setting, this episode focuses a lot more on the characters. In fact, their superpowers are barely used at all in the episode. While this could be considered a bad thing as the cool superpowers is one of the main selling points of the show, for this episode…it doesn’t really need them.

The main plot for this episode is pretty basic, almost cliche. Andou sends a letter to Jurei, which to his minds was meant to say he thought of a cool name for her power, but she read as a love letter, and she is totally down with it. So most of the episode is focused on this plot point and the emotional parts to it. Of course, we get a bit of intel on each of the characters.

Hatoka remains to be a derp, even derpier than the loli. She can’t think of anything better than sticking her name to the front of her name.

We also find she likes making tea and is just…very very derp. When the girls are mad at Andou for leading Jurei along, she can’t even ignore him properly.

 

Chiya remains a loli, which is good because that’s what she is. She does cute things, though her name choices, implying things like spousal difficulties and affairs, got a chuckle out of me. But mostly…she’s a loli. Umm..we heard her chipmunk plush is called Lissun.

There’s the big scary tall one, who’s shown that, other than being scary and being the harshest of the group, she apparently has a weak spot for cute things.Not sure where they’ll go with this but…its a thing.

Honestly, the main focus was on the other three characters for this episode. Red headed girl was…tsundere. She once again showed she’s way more into this super power stuff but hides it..and whenever its hinted she liked Andou she gets really red faced and denies it. So..typical..it hurts…

I’m not as much a stickler on that point as Hideki is though. If the main guy and main girl have actual chemistry and a unique aspect to their relationship, I can get behind it. So far though…its just been tsundere red headedness all the way.

We get to see a lot more of Jurei this episode. We know she’s enthusiastic, she’s passionate, and she loves romance, clearly. Even though she barely knows Andou, she still agrees to go out with him. My personal thoughts is that its not him she loves so much as the idea of being in love, of having a boyfriend, someone to give and receive affection from.  Its why she so quickly accepted his ‘love letter’ and why her affection is…rather generic. She never states particular aspects of him she likes…just that he’s her “darling”.

However, its quite clear her attachment, while very quick and not so much focused on him, did mean a lot to her as well. This leaves us to Andou. Andou at first tries to fix up the misunderstanding, but then gets caught up, both not wanting to hurt her feelings while also enjoying the attention. However, the girls all point out to him that this just can’t work.

I rolled my eyes at this. Oh, here we go, a wacky dumb plan using their powers that will backfire and then he’ll get even more deep in trou-

Oh…huh. This…really surprised me. Rather than just taking the easy way out like..trying to get her to not love him, Andou owns up to his mistake and does things honestly. I…wasn’t expecting this from this show…and its been a long time since I saw a conflict like this handled so well. Massive kudos for actually doing something that’s mature and has some emotional weight to it.

The scene where he tells her…its done very well. It rings true..and while she’s clearly hurt, she doesn’t hate him at all. It was emotionally sincere, and I give kudos for this. While I didn’t expect to see this from a comedy show..I liked it.

While overall, this episode didn’t have that much action or other stuff going on..I liked how they handled the silly dilemma and the emotional tone on it was good.

~Savage

——Midnight’s view of the world——-

Savage did a pretty good job of summing this one up, while this episode was very ‘Slice of Life’ and I can’t say that it’s a bad thing. The episode had it’s high points, and it’s lows. [I really hope they do something cool with the red headed character, so far she’s generic tsundere and that bothers me.] As for the rest of the girls, I don’t mind the direction they are going in. I have to say personally my favorite is the loli and if you know me, you’ll know that’s actually rather rare. She’s cute, her stuffed chipmunk is cute, and she tends to talk through the stuffed chipmunk when angry. I totally do that with a cat puppet I have. [don’t judge me!]

I absolutely love the fact that Andou did not get the girls to help him with he break up, I was expecting some kind of wacky scheme but the fact that he owned up rather seriously to this mistake/misunderstanding made me not just respect the show, but the character on a whole new level. He could of had the girls help him, but he decided to be a real man about it.

My initial assessment of this episode was that it was unneeded, I sort of stand by that while reassessing it to. This is a amazing slice of life episode, was it something THIS series could of gone without? probably, but that does not mean it was a bad episode. It took what could of gone into a mess and handled it in a very adult manor. Props all around. Also, that ‘My curry asked me to buy ingredients to make Mother’ line, might be one of my favorite anime quotes of all time now.

~Midnight