Kinjiro gets run over by a girl, Usami, on his way to school, and ends up getting attacked because he was too stupid to tell her that the thing he wanted between her legs were his lost glasses (and then again after she recognizes him as Subaru’s friend). Subaru asks Kinjiro out to the school festival, but Usami has other ideas.

Another rabbit jumps into the fray

So we have a new character introduced, with Usami. However, despite her claims of wanting to date Kinjiro due to wanting to dishearten S4′s enemies, it seems to me that she’s just lonely. She says she doesn’t have any friends, and doesn’t seem to have a great home life, and so she’s using the current situation as a reason to seek companionship.

Of course, that could cause problems for Kinjiro if she’s still wanting to date him after the school festival is over. If Kinjiro were smart, he’d tell Subaru the situation, but I’m not sure if he’s that smart, or if he’ll get the chance since I’m guessing most of his free time will be taken up either by school festival prep or with hanging out with Usami.  In any case, despite the initial impression, Usami doesn’t appear to be all that bad of a character right now to me.

It’s nice to have an episode with minimal Kanade interference, though there were a few cliches thrown in, such as Kinjiro falling into the dressing room while Usami was changing or his classes ending up in Usami’s lap, and instead of just saying so, he beats around the bush by saying he wants something from “down there” and thus sounding all perverted.

But all in all I think this episode was an improvement over the last two. It advanced the story in a different direction which has the potential to be interesting and entertaining.  I do find it funny that, in many shows like this, the main male lead is the one who gathers the harem, but in this case, it’s Subaru, the reverse-trap, who is unwittingly gathering the harem.  I just kind of find that funny.

Subaru arrives on Kinjiro’s doorstop at the start of golden week wearing cats ears and tail after being kicked out of the mansion. Soon Kanade shows up and challenges Subaru to a Butler vs. Maid battle, but this is stopped short when Kinjiro gets a cold. We soon learn why Kanade is there: Subaru and her father have been kicked out for fighting with each other until they make up.

Nyan Nyan Butler

This is the 2nd sorta mediocre episode in a row, and I’m afraid that this show may be falling into a rut.  We get some additional interesting background information, such as Kureha having a thing where she’s afraid Kinjiro might die when he gets sick (which I guess stems from how their father died) which is somewhat reflected in Subaru due to a similar thing happening to her mother.

However, the Subaru and her father are fighting thing and then getting kicked out just seems kind of contrived to me, and then Kanade just suddenly popping up was the point in the episode where I just kind of felt like this episode drove into a ditch (It wasn’t going so bad up to that point).  The last thing I want is for this series to be 8 more episodes of “Subaru gets into awkward situation with Kinjiro, Kanade suddenly randomly shows up to make it worse. Repeat.”

I like the characters. I think Subaru and Kinjiro are both being developed pretty well. I just think the writing and episode ideas over the past couple of episodes have been lacking.

So a series of events leads to Kanade telling Kinjiro’s sister, Kureha, that she is dating Kinjiro and invites her out on a “double date” to a waterpark along with Subaru with them.  At one point, Kinjiro and Subaru see a child drowning and go rescue it, only to find that while they were doing this, Kanade and Kureha are being held hostage at knifepoint. We learn Subaru is terribly frightened of blades, so Kinjiro knocks Subaru out to go rescue them himself, which fails abysmally until Subaru wakes and and saves the day. They then find out the whole thing was set up by Kanade and Subaru’s father in order to help Subaru get over her knife-phobia.

Little pig, little pig let me in

This was a so-so episode I guess. It was interesting to get a little more back story on Subaru, including her knife-phobia and all, and we get to meet her father, who doesn’t like Kinjiro much for groping Subaru in the first episode.  Otherwise, this was largely a beach/waterpark episode which gave them an excuse to have the voluptuous Kanade and loli Kureha in bikinis (but alas, not Subaru) for most of the episode.

Otherwise, I guess we get a bit more bonding between Subaru and Kinjiro, more jealous rage from Kureha, and more devious scheming from Kanada but that’s about it.  Not a bad episode, but not a fabulous one either.