To Love-Ru Episode 3 – Fun at the Aquarium

Yep, still watching To Love-Ru. I can understand people not liking/watching the show since it’s mainly an anime with a nonsense plot and tons of fanservice in your face. But for some reason, I still enjoy it since I actually like the artist’s work and art style and I do actually enjoy the comedy it offers.

Episode 3 involves Lala’s first time at school and the time spent out in the town with Rito, Mikan, and Haruna. Rito and Haruna’s relationship takes a slight turn for the better when Lala makes a big mess out of everything as usual.

Summary

Shortly after Lala transfers into Rito’s school, Rito tells her to not cause any trouble since it would be a big problem if everyone were to find out that Lala’s actually an alien. Lala agrees to Rito’s advice, but of course, that doesn’t save Lala from her natual clumsiness and actually grabs quite a bit of attention from the other students. Rito then bumps into Haruna who actually wants to have a talk with him. After a brief awkward silence between the two, Rito asks Haruna what she thinks of Lala, trying to clear the misunderstanding of him and Lala being a couple. Haruna replies that she thinks that Rito and Lala look good together which makes Rito completely depressed.

To try and cheer Rito up, Mikan and Lala decide to go sightseeing around town and drag Rito along as well. Lala goes out with her usual alien outfit and grabs the attention of everyone nearby. Rito and Mikan bring Lala into the alley where she can change her outfit to something more “suitable”. After changing into a bunch of ridiculous outfits, Lala finally comes up with a normal looking dress. However, after a short while of sightseeing, Lala’s dress starts to disappear due to Peke’s lack of energy from all the outfit changing from earlier. To save Lala from being completely naked in public, Rito and Mikan rush Lala into a clothing store to get some real clothes where Haruna was coincidently shopping.

Mikan explains the situation to Haruna and, along with Lala, invites her to go along with them to the aquarium. Lala wanders off on her own as Mikan goes looking for her, leaving Rito and Haruna alone. The moment the two were alone, Haruna tells Rito about how she used to always watch him take care of the flowers in the classroom and that is why she believed in him during the time he was being blamed for ruining the flowerbed at school. During this time, Lala tries to make the fish in the aquarium more “lively” by giving them alien berserker pills which make the fish go berserk (as the label says). This causes all the fish to jump out of the water and to save them, Lala fills the whole aquarium building in water so they could survive. Rito attempts to confess to Haruna (yet again) and is interrupted by Lala’s highjinks (yet again).

Impressions

Pretty decent episode. I wasn’t exactly too thrilled about it nor was I totally bored with it. They did use the same aquarium chapter from the manga only with a few minor tweaks. However, I think they totally skipped over the part where Rito faced the first of Lala’s suitors (which provided some Haruna fanservice). It’s probably not a chapter worth animating, but it was probably one of the few parts where it was actually involving the main plot line (where Lala’s suitors challenge Rito). But I guess I can’t really complain much as To Love-Ru is a series that puts fanservice, characters, and ridiculous scenarios first and actual plot dead last.

I’m getting a bit tired of watching Lala all the time. I hoping the put in the other characters in pretty soon. I think the interactions between a lot of the side characters and Rito are a lot better than seeing Lala causing Rito problems all day. I’m hoping to see more of “Golden Darkness” and actually some of Kotegawa Yui. Hell, bring in even Ren/Run or Saki for that matter.

I know this is probably due to budget or time constraints, but I think the anime would be a lot better if they kept in a lot of the little jokes and such that they have in the manga. They’re all a little minor, but stuff like Zastin always being lost, hunted by dogs, or even working at Rito’s dad’s manga studio would be fun to watch in the anime. It’s small and minor, I know, but I think it would add some flavor to the show.