Rinne no Lagrange: Season 2 - Episode 8

Now that inter-galactic peace has now been restored (for now, at least), we can focus our attentions on the all-important Jersey Club for a little while.

As this episode begins (and having been left adrift somewhat by the recently released Kamogawa Days OVA which I haven't yet seen), the Jersey Club finds itself in trouble - never mind the fact that its members feel as though they're being followed, the future of the club itself is in jeopardy as its unofficial status means that it may be stripped of its club room.  Thus, there's only one thing for it - to do what every other high school club in an anime series does right at the start of its run, and somehow find enough members to fulfil the complement of four required to make an official application.

Amazingly, it takes no time at all to find a new member - an enthusiastic girl named Reiko Miki, whose enthusiasm sadly isn't matched by her sense of balance as she proves to be clumsy in the extreme.  What's more, we ultimately discover that she isn't sticking around as a fan of the Jersey Club as a whole, but with a different desire - to pilot a giant robot, just like the other members.  Of course, this simply isn't going to happen, but at least the advent of the Tanada Night Festival (which is broadcast across the galaxy, by the school's broadcasting club rather bizarrely - you'd have thought they'd get NHK to handle an inter-galactic broadcast wouldn't you?) gives Madoka an opportunity to let her new charge down gently.  It's only come the end of the episode that we return to the task in-hand (you know, inter-planetary destruction and all that), as the sinister Moid finally reveals his hand.

There's no real way around it, this week's episode of Rinne no Lagrange was utter fluff, and not even the kind of amusing and entertaining fluff that the first series of this show seemed so good at delivering.  It's almost as if the cessation of hostilities has drained all meaning and energy from the series at this point, leaving it as an empty shell packed with talking heads that have nothing particularly meaningful to say - aside, of course, from Moid's revelations at the end of the episode, which look set to play a big part of the show's end game.  Oh well, I shall just console myself with a fantastic-sounding insert song in this episode (which had better be released as a single, and soon) and pretend that this instalment never happened apart from that.