10 Second Anime - Love Lab - Episode 13 [END]

Love Lab - Episode 13 [END]

Riko comes clean about being a love novice with all the other Love Lab girls. After some appropriate punishments, things continue on as they did before for the Student Council. All's well that ends well. That's a thing too, right?

Riko frets about what will happen to her friendships with the Student Council girls if they find out that she's not really some love expert. Again, her being a "crude tomboy" puts her way above any kind of middle school love expert because she has all this insider knowledge of what boys are like. She really doesn't need to worry. But thankfully for Riko, she finds out her friends don't like her for her love expertise, but for having common sense (in Maki's case), being the "Wild One" (in Suzu's case), or just not being shy about boys (in Eno's case). Sayo doesn't care since she knew from the start, but does like having another person to help keep the ridiculousness of the other three girls down to a simmer.

What was worrying Maki wasn't the love expert lie, but whether what Yan had told her was true, that Riko wasn't really her friend, but was just putting up with her and going with her flow. Maki actually likes that they're on equal footing for the love lab research stuff because they can have fun at the same pace. Still, Riko knows way more about boys than Maki does.

But she still has to make it up to her friends for being stubborn and not owning up to the misunderstanding about why she knows so much about boys (being a tomboy instead of a pretty girl who got their attention) much sooner. Suzu made some special tools at Sayo's request:

10 Second Anime - Love Lab - Episode 12

Love Lab - Episode 12

Riko's lies about her being a popular love master are starting to weigh on her conscience. Maki still can't handle boys, but she's learning. Will Riko telling Maki the truth about her loveless grade school days change their friendship?

The newspaper association's underground newspaper won't just have embarrassing pictures of the student council (although it will have plenty of those, heh), but will also have a love advice corner written in the style of a short story. This is their solution to the student council's love advice question problem from the suggestion boxes. The student council will have to come up with a diplomatic way to approve the newspaper association's suggestion.

But, having a regular forum for the love advice questions means that Riko will be relied upon more, and her tacit acceptance of the other girls' misconceptions of her past popularity is weighing down on her. This part doesn't make sense to me, but I can understand how it might be a big deal to younger kids. However, Riko being a tomboy did make her popular among the guys, but as one of their friends, so it does give her the qualification of expert on what boys like in girls. She just wasn't one of the girls they liked, well, except for Nagi when they were in preschool.

Besides, Riko is way popular with the girls in her all-girl school now, although it's as the "Wild One." None of this seems to be a problem to me, but it's apparently a problem to the people who knew Riko in grade school. The best comedies really are much ado about nothing. I think that's a thing or something. Heh.

This is all coming to a head as Riko is finding it harder and harder to keep the secret of her supposed unpopularity (although, come on, everyone knows who she is, so how unpopular could she be?), and one of her friends lets slip about it as Maki is coming to get her. I think in the end, it won't really matter.

10 Second Anime - Love Lab - Episode 11

Love Lab - Episode 11

The Love Lab girls need to answer more questions from the suggestion box. Maki has to go to cram school. Sayo gets embarrassed.

Gag anime has gags. There are still more questions about love coming in through the suggestion boxes for the student council, so the Love Lab girls get Riko to ask the questions of the boys at her cram school. Things are still... uncomfortable between Riko and her childhood friend.

After learning that boys seem to like long, black, silky hair, Maki goes a little overboard making up plots to show off her own hair. Her mother finds her notebook, and realizes she's been way too sheltered and may be developing a wrong idea about how to talk to boys. I do believe that's the whole premise of the show, Mom. So she get Maki's dad to send her to his friend's cram school, since her tutor is quitting to get married soon anyway. Nice timing. And it looks like Maki really needs to practice talking to boys.

Even though they're gathering information for the love advice questions, they still don't have a way to answer them without breaking the rules. Solution: the underground paper the Newspaper Association is printing up. Their main topic seems to be Sayo, but they do have a love advice corner. Hurray?!

10 Second Anime - Love Lab - Episode 10

Love Lab - Episode 10

No drama, no plot. Just a cute-girls-do-cute-things gag episode. Sayo gets dolled up. Sayo meets her boyfriend. Family members get face time. Maki the Fuji Princess at full power.

After all the tears and drama of the last few episodes, we are in full gag anime this week. The Love Lab girls figure Sayo needs a makeover after seeing her in that picture with her boyfriend. Needless to say, Sayo is not amused or appreciative.

And then we get to see the touching story of how Yuu Yamazaki, Sayo's boyfriend, and she met. Head under the skirt: works every time... One little thing I noticed was that the oversized sweatshirt that Sayo was wearing in that picture was the same one she wore back in grade school when she made Yuu buy her snacks for a whole year after the, er, cleaning accident. Perhaps Sayo is a little more sentimental than she lets on?

We already got to see Riko's little brother, so now we get a chance to see the other siblings of Eno and Suzu. Eno's older brother is a stereotypical otaku, and Sayo treats him accordingly. Slap! Meanwhile, Suzu's older siblings used to compete for her affections. Aww.

And in a little vignette where Suzu explains her perceptions of the Love Lab girls in a typical day, we see the Fujisaki Middle School Princess Maki at the height of her powers. Impressive.

10 Second Anime - Love Lab - Episode 9

Love Lab - Episode 9

Lots of tears over Sayo quitting the Student Council. Makio is finally put to good use, though the teachers have about the same reaction as the Love Lab girls do. Girls can be way sneaky.

Well, the much anticipated date-o post mortem party was cancelled due to Sayo getting caught walking with her boyfriend on digicam by the newspaper association, and offering to quit the Student Council as part of her punishment. Almost everybody cries. Enomoto, because it's her best friend since grade school. Suzu, because she's a sensitive soul. And Nana, because she took the picture, but didn't want anybody to get in trouble. Meanwhile, Riko and Maki are brainstorming ways to get Sayo back in. With the Newspaper Association's help, they fashion Makio Evolved! By weaving in some truth, like the love advice requests left in the suggestion boxes, the student council comes up with this fantastical tale of pretending to be a boy to help answer a question. In this scenario, Sayo took the fall so as not to implicate anyone in fraternizing with boys, because that's against the rules. Maki uses up her political capital by claiming that she can't say no to helping anyone who asks the Student Council. The teachers relent, and all the Student Council members have to do is write a letter of apology.

But where did all the details for Makio Evolved come from to match the picture on the camera, which was already in possession by the faculty? Oh, just old-fashioned bribery of the former Newspaper Club advisor with snacks, to grab the camera, download a copy of the picture, and return it. Pretty sneaky, sis.

As for some comedy points, I do love a call back to a Riko strike, even including the new hairstyle. And giving the teachers super-deformed reaction shots - awesome sauce.

Now that bit of drama has been resolved, I wonder what's next for the Love Lab girls. I was hoping we'd get back to boy troubles at the cram school, but it looks like we'll have strange family characters offering love advice.

10 Second Anime - Love Lab - Episode 8

Love Lab - Episode 8

Riko learns that her school nickname is "Wild One" and overcompensates in copying Maki. That doesn't last long. Sayo finally meets her boyfriend after 6 months, but gets caught by a teacher. Uh oh.

Not much physically happening this week, except for Riko overreacting over her "Wild One" nickname and trying to be a perfect prim and proper lady like Maki. A little dose of "Makio" cures that quick. Meanwhile, the student council is still trying to figure out how to answer these love advice questions from the suggestion boxes when it's against the rules to date boys. The newspaper association looks like they're sniffing around this hidden scandal, and the Love Lab girls think they're trying to leverage this knowledge into getting recertified as a club, but that doesn't seem to be it. This is all a roundabout way of getting physical evidence that Sayo was meeting a boy, which would cause trouble for the student council. Like Shakespearean comedies: disguises, misunderstandings, misdirection, pratfalls, it's all there.

10 Second Anime - Love Lab - Episode 7

 Love Lab - Episode 7

The love lab girls realize talking to a hug pillow is not the same as talking to real boys. Riko has a little brother, why not practice on him? Little brothers have their own issues, though.

The student council has two problems, and the love lab club has one problem: 4 requests for help in the love department from the suggestion boxes, and an unscrupulous newspaper editor looking for proof of illicit dating; and the love lab girls, except for Riko, have no practice in talking to real boys. Dakki the dakimakura (hug pillow) really doesn't count. Sayo, who supposedly has a boyfriend, hasn't talked to him at all, only exchanging email and texts. Since they can't do anything about the student council stuff with the newspaper club sniffing around, they decide to continue their "love research" activities.

Riko suggests coming over to her house and spending time talking to her little brother Rentarou. Sayo just wants to go to see how bad the advice from alleged love expert Riko can get since she knows Riko was a tomboy and was friendzoned by all the boys in grade school. Rentarou seems awfully taken by prim and proper Maki, and is not so impressed by the other girls, noticing only height (Sayo), shortness (Suzu), and eyebrows (Eno). Looks like Ren is also used to pissing off his mom and sister, since they both smack him the same way. But the girls do get to practicing talking to a boy, and Suzu gets to dish out some comebacks, even if they are of the super mundane prophetic variety. How would you take it if someone wished you missed out on the 5 dollar lottery and that you'd be bald in 21 years? Hiddoiiii! (how mean!!!!)

10 Second Anime - Love Lab Episode 6

Love Lab - Episode 6

You actually talked to a boy! And he ran away!

This week, the girls from Love Lab actually talk to boys, and even though they've been practicing how to attract their attention this whole time, nothing goes according to how they thought it would. Riko still doesn't think she's popular, yet the girls at her all-girl school have a different opinion of the student council vice president. Later, she has trouble remembering a boy she meets in a bookstore who runs away when he lets out he has asked her out before and been rejected, and the situation works to prop up her false persona as a love expert with Maki. As she tries to figure out who this boy is and when he confessed his love, she runs into another childhood friend, Ikezawa. Later, Riko's mom lets her know the boy is her old friend from the soccer team, but she still doesn't remember the love confession. Meanwhile, Maki talks to a boy for the first time, Ikezawa, and has an embarrassing time. Nothing really gets resolved, but the student council has larger problems as the rumors of a love research club begin to leak out into the school. Dating boys is against the rules, so there could be big trouble ahead.