This episode mostly introduces Ren, Lala’s childhood friend who she used to always make fun of for being a crybaby. Ren goes on a journey of sorts to become more manly to win over Lala due to a “promise” that was made back when they were children.
I wasn’t really impressed with this episode really. Too much Ren and not enough Run. A lot of the jokes weren’t really that funny to me and while there were a bit of references in there, I didn’t really find it too interesting.
Summary
As Rito runs off to school, he passes by a girl dressed in a boy’s uniform. A fly lands under her nose which makes her sneeze and something mysterious happens to her. At school, the teacher introduces a new transfer student who happens to be Ren, Lala’s childhood friend. Ren immediately goes to Lala announcing that he will win her back from Rito with his manliness. However, Lala vaguely remembers who he is and is only reminded with the help of an old photograph of the two as children. Ren reveals that there was a promise made between himself and Lala (to some extent) that she would marry him if he became manly enough.
After trying to compete with Rito at being manly, Lala is still oblivious to Ren’s efforts. Ren goes to Rito seeking some advice and Rito basically tells him to stop competing with him. Ren goes off to find out what other girls consider manly and tries to take all their comments into account to impress Lala. Lala, however, still does not acknowledge him and simply states that he looks funny more than anything else. Ren then wanders through town depressed and stumbles upon a movie about a manly boxer (Rocky parody). He is deeply motivated by the movie and becomes a boxer himself to become more manly. When Lala goes to tell Ren that he’s manly enough, after Rito told her to get it over with, he turns her away saying that he won’t see her until he reaches his limits of being manly. After going through a bunch of trials he finally awaits for Lala to say that he’s manly. However, right before she is about to say those words, Ren sneezes (with the help of a fly) and transforms into Run, the girl from the beginning of the episode. Lala then goes to say that she can’t possibly call a girl manly.
Impressions
Meh, pretty boring episode for me. It was nice to see Ren/Run finally, but like I said earlier, too much Ren and not enough Run. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really find heaps of “manliness” in my fanservice show too amusing. I commend the production for trying something different and changing the story, but so far I’ve been preferring the original manga over this. Though, I admit that it must be probably difficult to piece together enough material for one episode from the manga since the content is pretty random as it is. But hey, if Azumanga and Lucky Star can do it, then anything is possible.
I felt that they could’ve done better with this episode (if not the entire series so far). I realize that the theme of the episode was manliness, but they kind of overdid it seeing as this is a fanservice show anyways. There was a few fanservice shots here and there (some of them recycled from previous episodes), but it wasn’t really that impressive. I was expecting to see more of Ren/Run’s problems with the whole transformation thing happening at inappropriate moments. They did manage to squeeze it in at the end, but for even for an introduction episode, they could have had a little more of that. The kiss between Rito and Ren could have been done more cleverly or like it was in the manga with Run trying to kiss Rito and then transforming. Not that I enjoy watching near gay moments between two guys, but in comedy I’d laugh at almost anything.
Next episode introduces Kotegawa Yui (finally), who happens to be one of my favorite characters in the entire series. Hopefully, they won’t screw her up bad enough.
10 Comments
I can’t believe they actually use the word gar instead of manly in the translation. So unprofessional. Who subbed this episode?
Chihiro, 4chan trolls turned fansubbers. Quality of the translation is fine for speed subs, but yeah stuff like this happens =/
Next episode gets to the good stuff, been waiting for Yui and hopefully Yami sometime soon, the only two characters I was watching this show for.
“Next episode gets to the good stuff, been waiting for Yui and hopefully Yami sometime soon, the only two characters I was watching this show for.”
Totally agreed.
@LDC: Basically what Calawain said. Although they did mention in the beginning of the episode to replace “GAR” with manliness if you didn’t understand what GAR was. Nevertheless it was kinda weird for them to even use the term… I guess it was more fun for them that way.
@Calawain: Yeah, I’m hoping Yui and Yami turn out way better than all of the other characters so far. Yami shouldn’t be too hard for them to do since they already had an animated version of her in Black Cat.
Which subs do you use ,these from Ayako?
The guys are not that fast with subbing ,but they have the nicer Font style?
Those newfags don’t even know what GAR means.
They’re there to ensure /a/ rages over this. That or they think they’re funny using a now ruined meme.
I don’t want to see those stupid memes outside of 4chan. It’s annoying enough to see that Anonymous crap everywere >:[
I suspected it throughout the episode (about Ren/Run) but when it actually happened I was just like…O-O. Though the text ending was funny, a real conclusive or at least not randomnly cut-off ending would be better. It’s the same thing with the CG tentacle monsters; nothing actually happened to resolve it, it just ended with Rito running around screaming.
BTW, what do the banners at the top of THAT represent? There was one which was really interesting with the catgirl w/ bell and wolf with an eyepatch. It’s been bugging me for ages…
@Fabian: Chihiro is basically a speed subber group that recently started subbed a few episodes of this series. I’m not sure if they will continue or not with the project though. They also continue to tell people to support Ayako and download their subs when they are released… something that I’ve actually been doing for some reason. I usually don’t mind the quality of translation that much to actually care whether or not if Chihiro or Ayako does a better job so support whoever you wish.
@Randor: As I’ve read the manga before watching this series, I already knew about Ren/Run’s special ability. Of course since the anime deviated from the manga a long time ago, I really couldn’t expect how the episode unfolded. The cut-off endings are done a lot in comedy shows that have no real plot. You see it a lot in shows like Minami-ke or Lucky Star.
Sorry but I don’t know the source of that particular banner myself. I think Riex was the one who made it so he would most likely know. I remember hearing what it was once, but I totally forgot what it was. ;_;
So,I’ve finally watched it.
But I must say for me it was the badest Episode of To Love Ru.
They invested too much time for Ren,trying to get Gar.(funny word in that context when you know the german meaning of gar ;D )
I would have liked it if they haveused the original Rocky theme,when Ren was climbing the stairs.