天下制覇

You had her… and then you blew it.

Impressions:

Oh man, Shinra was nearly as adorable in the opening segment as she’s been all season… including the naked panda cuddling sequences.

Watching Natose and the Colonel practice their energy blasts reminds Ren about playing catch with his father during the ‘good times.’ Then Ren goes to wake up Shinra, who is sleep groping Venis. Once awake… Shinra gropes Miyu. It’s going to be one of those episodes, awesome. Life continues on as normal otherwise. Shinra reminisces a little bit with Ren about when he first came and they talk about their fathers. Shinra assures Ren that he’s not like his dad… Ren is a kind person.

The next day, Shinra tells the others that she’ll be borrowing Ren as her personal escort for a few full days of concert stuff. Everything goes fine and Shinra falls asleep on Ren’s shoulder on the ride home. At home, Shinra interrupts Miyu and Yume playing with a Wii to feel them up. Shinra is getting a little wrapped up in her work, so Ren invites her out on a date. Shinra agrees to it and magical Yume dolls up Shinra in casualwear. Good girl, Yume. Once on the date, Ren manages to win a stuffed panda for them… but only because the Colonel was the storekeep in disguise. Shinra admits that it’s her first real date. They do all the normal things until people start recognizing her at an arcade so they retreat to a photobooth, but are mobbed by fans on the way out.

At sunset, Shinra thanks Ren for the day, saying that she had fun. Ren tries to make a move, but Shinra turns and he backs off. Ren gives her his jacket and tells her to not work so hard. He keeps sweet talking her and puts his hands on her shoulders and tells her that she’s special… but then he blows it by telling her that he understands her and that she should do whatever feels good. She gets pissed, telling him that the Kuonji are better than that. Shinra reminds him of his place as a servant and leaves. As Ren walks home, his father steps in front of him. Ren’s vision blurs and he starts losing his mind as his father threatens him.

I have to admit that the "kono o-san" -> "croissant" joke made my brain almost try to leave my body. Come on… even for bad puns, that was just terrible. The comedy pretty quickly tailed off after the start of this episode, so it wasn’t one of my favorites, but at least they did the drama of this episode quite a bit better than they handled the Yume stuff. Ren meant well, but kind of stuck his foot in his mouth by basically ignoring everything her teacher told her and implying that she should just settle for second best. It wasn’t meant as a passive-aggressive insult, but come on Ren, you should know better than that. Shinra was putty in his hands before that too. Not that that’s hard since Miyu, Yume and Venis all got to have a taste of her this episode. In other news, for as much as Ren was flipping out at the end, his father wasn’t around all that much in the preview for next week so we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully it won’t just be a repeat of the Yume "I’m going to sit in the corner with the lights off and listen to Lincoln Park for 15 minutes" nonsense.

Preview:

My life as the butler to a rich family is soooooooooooo hard.