天下制覇

Even Bugs Meany could have figured this one out. 

Impressions:

There was some really funky art this episode, or maybe I’m just not used to seeing the girls with their hair down. The girls also seemed to be a lot… er… bouncier than normal this episode. I’m a little annoyed that they had a chance for another nice Suzu x Ikuto moment and they just sort of blew by it entirely. *sigh* It wasn’t really all that bad of an episode, but honestly, I get the feeling that this show is pretty much running on autopilot at this point. Ever since the great crotch shot episode, it’s been pretty new characters every episode and essentially filler. Oh well, 6 episodes left.

Summary:

When last we left our hapless hero, he was having a harrowing hostile encounter with a horrible author of horrifying stories, but enough alliteration. So… we get to start this episode with a flashback to the past… as told by the sepia tones, where a ninja is visiting a librarian to borrow some books.

Back to the present, Ikuto is facing down the masked guy while Ayane still is doing the “ants in my bathrobe” dance. He admits to tricking Ayane with an Ikuto mask. Sakuya interrupts them by switching back into combat mode to punish him for harassing a guest, but he leaps into the forest and runs away.

Ikuto and Sakuya give chase, but then Sakuya stops and deploys her full arsenal, torching the forest. The girls hear the explosion, but just think that it’s Sakuya, or even fireworks. Sakuya and Ikuto just have a crater to look at.

The girls start gossiping about Ikuto and Suzu’s relationship or lack thereof. Machi leads the way, but Shinobu misunderstands everything as some form of food joke. Suzu reassures them that Ikuto and her aren’t doing anything strange.

Chikage finally joins the conversation and arranges some form of contest to figure out who Ikuto likes the most. Everybody starts arguing, except for Suzu, who just looks downcast. As Chikage laughs and looks outside, the masked man jumps away.

Sakuya and Ikuto are still running around searching for Mr Evil. Ikuto thinks that Sakuya should have some special powers or ability to detect things, but she’s pretty much useless, so Ikuto says that they need to use their heads and declares a challenge to the masked man.

Inside, the girls are going through their own ways of making themselves pretty for Ikuto. Rin is brushing her hair, Machi is playing ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ with a voodoo doll, Yukino is setting up games to play, Shinobu is off in her own world when a chair suddenly appears behind her, grabs her and starts massaging her. Ikuto and Sakuya hear her yell in surprise and rush in to find her totally passed out with Chikage standing over her. Chikage gives her now trite “this is a mystery” speech.

Meimei’s preparation for Ikuto is to just spazz out in her room as somebody who looks like Ikuto approaches with an evil grin.

In Ayane’s room, Ikuto comes to visit and make sure that she’s okay. She drops her bathrobe and shows that she’s all better and he embraces her. Of course it’s all a dream, and Sakuya clocks her for her rantings. They then hear Meimei’s scream. Ikuto grabs a wooden sword and they run off.

They find her passed out. She comes to, and she glomps Ikuto and then tries to strip and kiss him. Ikuto is fighting her off when the masked man appears and reveals his dastardly scheme of hitting her with a love potion.

Heading to Yukino’s room, he’s got some strange potion that he’s preparing to douse her with. Ikuto gets there in time and manages to knock it away. The man retreats and Ikuto gives chase. Yukino then wakes up and sees the spilled liquid and thinks that she wet the bed. Urine jokes. Oi.

Ikuto’s search continues. He suddenly senses an evil presence and throws open a door… only to find Machi with her voodoo doll still. He closes it and continues on. Rin’s the next to scream, but it’s just Mikoto trying to strip her as usual. He random opens a few more doors and gets attacked by various animals for it.

A bit depressed, Chikage comes up to him and says that there was something suspicious. Ikuto runs off. In Suzu’s room, she’s dreaming of mame daifuku when Ikuto comes in and uncharacteristically expresses deep concern for her. He leans in close and starts his seduction as we see that he’s got a bomb thing of some sort behind his back.

The real Ikuto runs in, but the fake says that he’s the real one. Suzu, being the clueless ditz that she is, can’t tell the difference. The real Ikuto sticks his sword between the two and says that messing with Suzu is unforgivable. The deception over, the masked man retreats and heads to the roof with Ikuto.

Up on the roof, the man asks if Ikuto really knows what he’s doing, up on the roof. The man uses the magic words “absolutely impossible” to piss him off before tossing a pair of the vials out and promising chaos if they break. Ikuto leaps to catch them, and in the process falls off the roof. Sakuya tries to catch him, but her arms break off. The potions don’t break though, and the man flies off on a kite… or so we think. Ikuto tosses the potions to Suzu and runs off after the kite.

Back up on the roof, the man laughes at Ikuto’s foolishness, but Chikage appears behind her and says that the jig is up. She knows that ‘he’ is really Chikage’s mother, to the surprise of nobody really. She says that she was the biggest fan of the mystery writer way back when and is how she keeps his memory alive.

Morning comes, and everybody is still more or less knocked out, though Ikuto is on the beach with a mask and a doll yelling about how he’ll have his revenge.

After the episode, Chikage is selling books of their adventure and Ikuto finally gets something approaching a clue.