The Love Lab gets a request regarding “Hairstyles boys like”, so Riko asks Nagi at cram school, who tells her about a girl whom his classmates idolize, who is probably Maki. Meanwhile Maki’s sister reads her love research and alerts her dad, who decides to let Maki attend a co-ed cram school. It happens to be the same one Riko, Nagi, and Yan attend, and she makes a scene when Yan calls her “Natsuo”. Nagi suspects that Riko’s been putting on airs to fool her friends. When the school reverses its policy forbidding contact with boys, Momo and Nana offer space in their newspaper for “Love Lab Correspondence.”
– “Are you a master of love?”
– “W-Well, yeah! I’ve had a few boyfriends, of course.”
That little conversation when Riko and Maki first met began the now long-standing fiction that can only end badly unless Riko sets the story straight. Whenever Maki, Eno, and/or Suzu gush over Riko’s non-existent romantic prowess, she always squirms with guilt that only Sayo has detected thus far. Now that Maki attends cram school with Riko and her two childhood friends, there’s no way the lie can survive. The question is, will she come clean of her own accord, or wait for it to all blow up in her face, wounding all her friendships new and old?
Whatever happens, there should be some decent character drama in store to go along with the comedy, which was particularly abundant this week. Maki’s whacked-out courtship fantasies are always entertaining (as is the commentary by whomever is enduring them), and this week she made Yan her straight man, overreacting to a simple misunderstanding about her name. She’s pretty useless around guys, but Riko doesn’t do much better, and Nagi doesn’t help. You get the feeling the two actually like each other, but are simply never able do or say the right thing at the right time, causing mutual frustration leading to discord.
Rating: 7 (Very Good)
Stray Observations:
- Eno complaining about hair fluttering while actually doing it, followed by the others doing it in unison, was pretty funny.
- It’s Riko’s fault she’s in this dilemma for lying, but Maki’s sister didn’t help matter by pleading with their father to let Maki attend cram school with boys.
- Maki’s dad is pretty protective, and sings songs about lingerie, but at least he doesn’t force her to pose for nude photo shoots every year, unlike some rich dads…
- Maki rides in a spankin’ new Mercedes CLS. What do those go for in Japan? Oh, a cool ¥9,450,000, or US$95,185.
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