A panda is fine too.

This week is the first episode of the Ageha arc, as hinted in last week’s preview she temporarily moves in with the Kuonji family. While a bit less humorous than episodes in the past, there’s actual plot development in this one, which was actually handled decently and not overly dramatic or anything. And if you were wondering why the Kimiaru post format keeps changing it’s because I really can’t decide how to handle this show, it doesn’t lend itself as easily to summaries as previous shows I’ve covered.

 

 

 

While there is little Shinra content this week they at least managed to include the weekly quota of Shinra fanservice. I could only pick one shot from this scene, but over the minute-long scene there is plenty of exposed Shinra for your viewing pleasure. Gets my stamp of approval, plot be dammed.

Ageha arrives at the Kuonji manor with much fanfare, having her men redo a room for her to stay in. The premise for her staying at their house is that Kojuuro was injured in a recent training expedition when a flash of Ageha’s panties distracted him. So while he is recovering in the hospital Ageha is going to stay at the Kuonji’s place. In order to defeat the resistance of the family members to her staying there and remodeling the room, Ageha has brought them all individual gifts to buy them off.

Ageha brings sporting tickets for Benisu, grilled meat for Natose and ice cream for Yume to start off. Without fail they are completely engrossed with her gifts and resist no longer. Next comes Shinra, who is offered a box of live baby pandas to cuddle with, and a bag of gold bars for the Colonel. Last on the list is Miyu, who stands firm initially, but falters for the above pictured shouta idols. Miyu follows them off and calls Mihato over to help out, leaving only Ren, who has been conscripted into service as Ageha’s new personal butler.

For the rest of the episode Ren serves as her butler, and she gets started on training him in making tea how she likes it. When he fails at first she smacks him around a bit while we are treated to shots of the girls enjoying their gifts, including some nice Yume service when she spills ice cream on her shirt. Meanwhile, some shady looking burglars survey the house looking for an opening to get to Ageha, but realize that’s not possible with the Colonel around. The next day Ren and Ageha continue to do some physical training while the nurses in the hospital try and seduce a resisting Kojuuro, who misses Ageha’s punches.

Later Ren and Ageha have a talk, where she tells him that she is the heiress to the steel division of her family’s company so she’s been training her strength since she was a child. Ren compliments her drive and notes that it’s unfortunate she has to use such beautiful hands to hit people, causing Ageha to have a dere dere moment. After she recovers they walk off, back to the Kuonji home. The next day the Colonel has to leave the mansion, allowing the assailants from before to attack. Ageha notices and decides to try and fight them on her own and drive them off.

After knocking them to the ground Ren comes out to find Ageha, who tells him that they were assassins sent from a rival company to kill her. One of the assassins struggles to sit up a bit and launches a needle/dart at Ageha, forcing Ren to dive in front of her. However, Ageha is just as quick and intercepts it before it hits Ren and throws it back at the assailant, knocking him out.

Back in front of the mansion door, Ageha decides to reward Ren for his work and concern for her safety by allowing him to kiss her hand in a show of loyalty. However, she concludes that it was too lukewarm and instead pulls him to her and kisses him, causing both Ren and Mihato (who was watching from inside) to freeze in shock. Later Mihato is shown feeling both angry and depressed that Ren is moving away from her, and Miyu comes and comforts her.

Next Episode:
Part 2 of the Ageha arc, looks to be a battle of butlering between Ren and Kojuuro over Ageha.

Impressions:
This week we moved through another episode focused on one of the girls, with decent results overall. Drawing comparisons with the Benisu and Yume episodes, I think it ranked above the Benisu story plot-wise but lacked the laugh out loud humor of the Yume episode. The plot development and slight Ageha backstory was interesting and not overdone or melodramatic. I find her character pretty interesting, a bit of a tsundere streak to go along with her natural ojou-sama charms. I don’t really dig the scar fetish attempt, but it doesn’t really bother me in the end.

The humor in this episode was a bit lacking, I found the gifts she brought and the reactions to them pretty funny, and I was pretty surprised that Miyu was into shoutas. She is always trying to act older than she looks so I assumed she liked older guys, but alas I was wrong. The rest of the episode didn’t have that much humor, the beating on the guy training has been done before and wasn’t particularly interesting. However, it’s pretty hard to top the humor of last week’s parody train.

Ageha isn’t going to be the girl he hooks up with in the end (if there even is one), so I was surprised that she kissed him so forcefully, especially with it being both of their first kisses. Just points out another way in which this show goes against the grain, as we’ve had almost zero of the melodrama and snail paced plot that most harem shows tend to fall into. Instead we are treated to humor and fanservice with a random plot twist thrown in there to keep things interesting. Here’s to hoping for a Shinra end though.

Looking onto next week’s episode, I don’t have a problem with having two episodes for Ageha as her character is strong enough to support the additional content, especially with Kojuuro thrown into the mix. Next week looks to involve more of the household as well, with the apparent competition between Ren and Kojuuro. I’m looking forward to that battle of GAR, and I’m predicting large amounts of manly yelling from these two high-powered male seiyuu.

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