Sunday, May 8, 2011

To Love-Ru Vol. 8

VOL. 8 – HEART THROBBING SURVIVAL
Trouble 62 – Like Lovers at the Summer Festival

A sweet chapter focusing on Rito and Sairenji, they finally have some alone time with each other. Rito works up the courage to confess, but the words comically get drowned out by the sound of the fireworks. Not a bad chapter, but it’s a more touching chapter than a funny one.

Trouble 63 – In the Name of Revenge…

We get more adventures of Run, Ren’s alter ego (if it can be called that…). I do find it ironic that Ren’s rival is Rito yet Run loves him (and rivals with Lala, completely opposite!). Run can be quite evil with her plots at trying to embarrass Lala, but Rito is always the one that accidentally gets affected. I like in the end how Run changes back to Ren so he would be the bad guy instead, I thought that was really funny.

Trouble 64 – A Strange Haruna

Haruna is acting all strangely and out of character in this chapter, the ghost Oshizu had accidentally taken over her body (and she loves the life of actually having a body). The fake confession of Haruna to Rito was hilarious.

Trouble 65 – Return My Body

Oshizu does not know how to escape from the body and she is killing Haruna slowly if she stays in there! She does get out in the end, and finds out Haruna’s love (Oshizu ends up becoming part of the cast and urges Haruna to confess and fight for Rito). Hmm… why does a lot of these manga have a girl ghost in it? Ah well, a decent two chapter story arc.

Trouble 66 – Swin, Dolphin-kun!

Beginning a new story arc, this time it is at four chapters long. A great chapter, a lot of laughs, particular the situation that Rito gets in, that was truly funny. The cast goes to a beach (transported by Lala’s warping device) but gets stuck there as the warping device is left behind. Run is starting to become more and more prominent, I think this is one of the few times we get to see Ren, quite sad that he only got a few chapters of limelight and then he’s gone (later chapters we don't get to see him at all!).

Trouble 67 – The Strange Forest’s Inhabitants

The cast is stuck on the beach… of another planet! No wonder there seemed to be weird plants and animals everywhere. Umm… not the best chapter in the current story arc, but it is fun nevertheless.

Trouble 68 – Heart Throbbing Survival

Haruna turns out to be the one that adapts the fastest to their predicament. The second half of the chapter is an obligatory hot spring type scene, where Rito accidentally sees them and gets smashed. The story gets a little bit more interesting as we wonder how they are going to get out of there (as Zastin is too busy being a manga assistant).

Trouble 69 – The Lost Children

Well, it’s a bit of a disappointing resolution to how they get off the planet, their school nurse just “coincidentally” appear on this planet out of all the others as it’s a good planets for cures. Zastin also appears just as they left, poor guy is left alone on the planet with no way out (which just brings up the question how he was supposed to help in the first place!). A good story arc actually, it’s a whole lot more interesting than some of the other random chapters we’ve been getting.

Trouble 70 – Night Tutor

Rito is not actually doing that well in school (then again, with all the awesome distractions he’s been having, it’ll be hard to concentrate!), Lala is in actuality really smart! So she’s been helping out Rito and tutoring him for a bit. It ends with another misunderstanding as Mikan comes in, hilarious, and makes Rito end up forgetting everything when he does his test the next day. A funny chapter.

Overall
Another decent volume, the chapters are starting to be on the same level in terms of entertainment and humor, so it’s really enjoyable to read them. I find myself thinking less and less how stupid and lame some of the parts are. By this time, we see some of the minor characters are gone for good, and some of the running gags have stopped being used simple because there is no space for them.
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