The Board Chairman’s Memories are Painful (-＿-) /  (理事長は追想が切ない(-＿-))

So, we’ve made it up to episode 9. Oh I’ve been waiting for this, the episode consists of two parts so to say, the setup for the next mizugi episode and the main event. But first, it’s an average day at the Neighbor’s club….

 

Context? It won’t help 

So yeah, apparently the two most anti-social people (Yozora and Rika) decided to have a “wear swimsuits to club” day. And Yozora’s suit is a walking testament to her failure to communicate with people. I swear Yozora could give Shiji a run for his money in anti-social behavior. But hey, at least that gives us more humorous nun abuse…

Again, this scene paints out what a bully Yozora is, but hey, it’s divine retribution upon Index, so I’m not complaining. Also I might have not mentioned this before, but sister Maria and Kobato have a bit of a dispute over who gets to “love onii-chan the most” again, not Yosuga no Sora levels, but still.

Loli Grail War

The idea of actually finding use for the swimsuits outside of club and not in the over-crowded pool comes up and they decide to use Sena’s private beach. You ever notice that in many anime, there’s always the rich girl out of your friends who has a private beach and/or beach house (i.e. Kawashima Ami had one in Toradora!, and there’s Tsumugi in K-ON!). Just saying.

And then the real core of this episode starts, Kodaka and Kobato visiting their father’s old friend and Sena’s father… the Chairman.

And you can tell by this person that he is Sena’s father. How? He’s also socially inept in the cutest way imaginable. And his favorite animal name is Pegasus, which he doesn’t take too easily. And there’s also the snarky butler real life troll Stella.

 Pegasusu Tenma, Kenzan! Nai! (go watch Saint Seiya the Lost Canvas for the real one)

Hm… Rich family, western strange names this is turning into Umineko no Naku Koro ni

 

And here we actually receive some  exposition on Kodaka’s father and a bit characterization for Kodaka. Supposedly he is way more timid than his “wild” father, but won’t stand for his father to be called “trash”, even jokingly. Again, he’s no Ryuuji from Toradora! with complex father issues, but still some backstory is good.

The dinner is going along as awkwardly as it could, Pegasusu! is formal to the extreme with Kodaka trying to follow up, Sena is in her dere-dere mode, Kobato is noming the food but also shies out of conversation and Stella is a deadpan snarker. But Sena is not missing the chance provided with getting the object of her affection home…

 Kousaka Kirino would be proud of such Imouto-centrism 

Yeah, somehow when Sena gets the chance to act-up on max on Kodaka and solve the “love triangle” with Yozora, she actually goes all out on Kobato. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a peverted kind of assault, one could argue that Sena is just in it for the moe. And the perfect opportunity arises when the Hasegawas miss the last bus (intentional on the Kashiwazakis behalf I might add) they get them to stay the night…

Is that Aw~kawaii~ or lust in her eyes? Only Sena knows 

Yeah. Sena even lucks out with having the sleepy Kobato agree to go to the bath with her. Yeah… Kobato’s not going to be happy when she regains full consciousness. But meanwhile Pegasusu! invites Kodaka for a real man’s pass-time – drinking! And yeah, this also mirrors how he drank with his father, so this might’ve been a pretty informative easy-going talk.

Pegasusu! ain’t no professional Russian. 

But the Chairman gets defeated by the bottle pretty easily. But he is a gentleman after all and has enough class to at least walk to the bed to collapse. You can tell this man is Sena’s father alright.

Well that leaves Kodaka to go and look for Kobato, which as we last remember went to the bath with Sena. And knowing what kind of show this is… you can guess what happens. Not he doesn’t accidentally walk in on them, they walk in on him.

 One of the most hilarious scenes of the whole series

So yeah, Sena flashes Kodaka and in turn calls him a pervert which he throws right back at her. And that causes her to…  not hit him like the usual tsun-bitch would do, but rather run out of her house, stark naked, while screaming UNIVERSE! I did not make that up.

Near the tree… Maybe it’ll be better on the Blu-ray release 

But honestly, that scene in all its randomness and fanserviceness is what makes Sena the most popular character (IMHO and actual Japanese character polls). Sure Haganai has tons of fanservice characters, but Sena does it with style and humor.

And with that my favorite episode of Haganai draws to close. Kodaka did the chivalrous “I was drunk and don’t remember anything” concerning the whole Universe incident thus adding points to the KodakaxSena angle of the love triangle.

I’ve got to say, this episode exemplified all I love about this series: slightly weird characters, fanservice, humor and the light tone.

Episode rating:  S.

See you next time. As the series ends, I’ll give a review of the whole thing in the last episode review.

 P.S.: The Loli Grail War is happening on twitter as you read this…