Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! - Episode 8

Now that the true cause of Rikka's delusions and behaviour have been laid bare, can she face up to reality and move on?

Of course not!  Thus, this episode begins with Rikka and her elder sister fighting once again, with Rikka's delusion conflict overlapping with Touka's desperate attempts to get her sibling to behave rationally and accept the difficult truth about their father and former home.  When Yuuta steps in to put his own spin on things, Rikka makes good her escape and is nowhere to be found until Yuuta realises what she's up to and finds her... on the train back home.

While Isshiki has some goings-on of his own to ponder regarding Kumin and the rest of the group continue to goof around on their summer vacation, Rikka and Yuuta are thus left to return home by themselves, and when it's revealed that Rikka doesn't have the keys to her home with her there's nothing for it but to let her spend the night at Yuuta's place - a decision which leaves them alone together.  Are the incidents that follow a further sign of Rikka's burgeoning love towards her friend?  Probably, but she appears entirely too childish to see it.

It's this refusal to allow her to ease up on her delusions that makes this growing love story out of the heart of Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai a little awkward - at its most basic level it really doesn't work as there isn't any kind of grounding in place for such a romance, and the complete lack of character development exhibited by Rikka makes it hard to root for her and Yuuta in any way.  Stick that alongside what is now a well-worn groove of humour exhibited by the series (with one or two well-placed exceptions) and I continue to flounder in my attempts to get excited about the series.  Perhaps if it can take the brakes off and allow Rikka's actual personality to develop a little the latter third of the series might surprise me, but at the moment it seems to be singularly refusing to do so, which I believe is to its detriment.