To Love-Ru Episode 9 – The Rocketeer and the Nurse

A mysterious man from space comes crashing down to Earth in search for Lala. The peculiar thing about this guy is his strange outfit and his ability to fly with the power of his rocket suit. We are also introduced to Mikado-sensei, a doctor of all people so to speak.

Summary

Out in the middle of some country side area (me thinks it’s somewhere in mid-west America, but I could be wrong), Pikari, a man from outer space who’s come to find Lala and marry her, has crash landed in front of someone’s home. A young woman with a shotgun comes out to confront Pikari, but all he simply asks is if the place he was in was Japan or not. The lady tells him that Japan is way on the other side of the world. Pikari thanks the lady by complimenting her on her freckles and kissing her on the forehead before flying off. I guess he likes to make big exits.

Rito and Lala are walking to school as Rito starts to feel chills and starts sneezing. Rito thinks it might be a cold so the two head to the nurse’s office. The find that the nurse’s office is empty so Lala takes the initiative and changes into a nurse’s outfit so she could “examine” Rito. Lala pushes Rito onto the bed and attempts to take his temperature with her forehead. Just then, Mikado-sensei walks in on them and asks if they’re playing the “doctor game”. Rito, of course, denies that they did anything and Lala explains that she was trying to take his temperature. Mikado-sensei gives Rito a thermometer and teases him by asking if she should use her forehead instead. Lala jumps in and says to leave it to her, but ends up knocking Rito and herself down onto the floor.

After school, Lala and Rito are confronted by Pikari, who Lala vaguely remembers because he would always “disappear” suddenly. Pikari attempts to fly off with Lala, but Lala disables his rocket suit and causes it to malfunction and crash land him in some forest. Pikari, all beat up, wanders the street as he has a flashback of his mother and father. Ren notices him and immediately recognizes where he comes from thanks to the suit he’s wearing. Pikari asks Ren for help in order to fix his rocket suit in which he does because Ren is a “man”. Pikari then attempts to find Lala at Rito’s house, but Lala just knocks him away with a modified tennis racket.

Pikari wanders the streets again badly beaten and is found by Zastin, who directs him to a secret medical office for aliens. The office just happens to be run by Mikado-sensei herself and she assists him in fixing his rocket suit. The next day, Rito and Lala visit the nurse’s office again and Lala attempts to take his temperature… again. This time, however, Pikari enters to room and knocks Lala out with a “Rocket Beam” and confines Rito with a “Rocket Slash”. Mikado-sensei appears and wraps Pikari up with a bunch of bandages for disturbing her office and sends him off back to his home planet with Lala’s space rocket invention. Mikado-sensei reveals that she herself is an alien and already knew of Lala’s heritage.

Impressions

Another mediocre episode for me. Still no signs of Yami-chan in the upcoming episode nor have we seen much of the side characters in this episode. While Pikari was a bit amusing to watch when he used his “special abilities”, I found him mostly annoying and a waste of time watching. I doubt it was necessary to include him as a way to introduce Mikado-sensei so I didn’t really see much point of this episode. There was even a lack of fanservice except for a few shots of Mikado-sensei’s cleavage and maybe Lala in a nurse’s outfit if you’re into that. I pretty much felt disappointed and bored throughout all the recycled scenes and repeated randomness of this episode, but at the same time it felt a bit expected.