天下制覇

What she said.

Impressions:

This was a pretty lame episode, truth be told. The jokes were predictable, poorly paced, and Ikuto’s rampant stupidity was matched only by the stupidity of the writers to decide to make Meimei, of all people, into the other character for the obligatory “love interest squabble” arc as we start to near the finale. Oh well, it was a good run of four or five episodes that were a lot of fun before hitting a dud. I prefer violently jealous manga Suzu anyway. If she starts moping around the house… there will be hell to pay.

Summary:

We start out with a reminder that the island is divided into four regions, each ruled by an animal lord, along with a quick once over of the three animal lords that we know.

Over in the promised land Suzu’s bath, she’s giving Tonkatsu a bath when suddenly another Tonkatsu appears. Ikuto rushes in with a broom, and naked Suzu grabs onto Ikuto. The fake Tonkatsu ends up being the cat lord in disguise. He’s here to discuss the situation with the lords of the island and how there’s turmoil there. They decide to deal with it tomorrow.

The next morning Ikuto is picking up eggs from the chickens when he suddenly stops and realizes how used to the strange and bizarre he’s become on the island. Breakfast with Suzu and the cat lord continues uninterestingly apace.

We end up over at Meimei’s house for whatever reason, where she’s feeding Toona. She hears a knock on the door and goes to answer it, but Toona stops her and opens the door instead to find the panda lord. The panda is about to attack, but Meimei stops him. He instantly falls in love with her, and grabs her. Toona becomes angered and the two are about to start fighting, but the cat lord jumps in and knocks them both out.

Suzu and Ikuto come running up, but the panda lord recovers and is about to start fighting again, but the cat lord questions him about the lords. The panda tries to say that it has nothing to do with him, but the cat lord gets angry and powers up to fight. The panda ends up running off with Meimei, until the tiger lord clocks him and gives yet more nonsensical exposition until he points to Meimei as the one who beat him and took his lordship.

Another boring flashback later, we see the tiger lord come across Meimei in her various disguises. He eventually managed to corner her and tries to attack, but she leapt up a cliff and accidently dropped a boulder on his head on her way out. He insists that it was an attack and not just a coincidence.

During the dumb flashback, the panda lord has made off with Meimei once again. They give chase again, but the tiger lord is the one to stop him and launches him into the ocean before taking custody of Meimei. The tiger takes Meimei to go back to rule over the area properly, but Ikuto challenges him for the right to Meimei, complete with misunderstandings and blushings before Ikuto saying that he’ll definitely win. They’re being watched from above by a couple of birds, one of them in shadows.

Ikuto thinks that it’s the duty of a guy to protect a girl before charging at the tiger with a stick. Needless to say, Ikuto is no match for the tiger, so Suzu takes over the fight. Ikuto stops her though, and says that it’s a man’s fight. Well done, doofus. Your misogyny has won you a savage beating.

As is the case whenever the hero is hopelessly outmatched, everybody is impressed with his persistence, but still yells at him that he’s done enough, yada yada yada until the power of his spirit impresses the villain enough to make him throw the match. Ikuto actually managed to dodge a blow, which resulted in the tiger slashing open Suzu and Meimei’s clothes… and then a nosebleed in the tiger’s eyes, letting the shadowy bird help out Ikuto and land a blow… thus making him the winner. SURPRISE SURPRISE.

As the tiger lord is heading back to his region, we find out that the shadowy bird, and the final lord, is the chicken that lives near Suzu’s house.

Meimei tenderly cares to Ikuto’s wounds while Suzu looks on with a worried face.

After the ED, the panda is still loitering around Meimei’s house when his woman comes to beat some sense into him, brought by the cat lord.