Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! REN - Episode 2

It isn't exactly breaking news that Yuuta and Rikka's relationship is a long way from "normal", living together or otherwise - however, Nibutani seems to have rather overestimated the pair's romantic leanings as she proves to be determined to find out about their lovey-dovey domestic life.

With a little prodding and provocation, Nibutani has managed to persuade both Kumin and Dekomori to join her on a little spying session to see what happens between Yuuta and Rikka when they're alone together.  The answer is a depressingly obvious one - Rikka remains mired in her fantasy world most of the time, while Yuuta spends most of his time trying to steer his girlfriend in the right direction to keep her on track in reality.  Such is Nibutani's alarm at this situation that she pulls Yuuta aside and points him in the direction of "professional" help, in the form of a girl named Kannagi who purports to be the school's expert in love.

As far as Kannagi is concerned, there's a simple solution to this problem - Yuuta needs to make the first move and take Rikka out on a date, and before he knows it she's nabbed his phone and sent the invitation herself via e-mail.  So it goes that the pair set out for a date to the local aquarium - a day out which Rikka loves every minute of, and our leading couple even get to hold hands for a while.  However, Rikka confesses that she still has absolutely no clue as to what this whole love business is all about, and such is the extent of her concerns that Yuuta tells her - chuunibyou-style, of course - that she really shouldn't worry about it and just carry on as normal.  But has a threat to Rikka's status with Yuuta just appeared?

Having broadly enjoyed this episode (as I did last week's instalment to a similar degree), I can't help but wonder if this series would actually be better without the "chuunibyou aspect" at its heart at this point - Rikka's relative childishness and clueless behaviour works fine at this point without the irritating delusion aspect of her personality to prop it up, and I continue to find myself cringing whenever it crops up.  Beyond that, this was rather a sweet little episode with a few decent funny moments to stand up against some of the more entertaining episodes from the first series.  I realise it's unreasonable for Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions to lose two-thirds of the elements in its title so I'm clearly shouting into the wind here, but perhaps even a toning down of Rikka's personality would quash my continued reservations about that aspect of the show.