Previously on Love Flops, we saw the end of the harem formula; Asahi spent time with his last candidate, Karin.
However, I have to shout from the rooftops that this episode is the craziest thus far — and also, my favorite.
Opening Scene
Asahi is walking along the beach with a girl with purple hair. They look up at the stars together and start recounting constellations.
Asahi wakes up from this, apparently it being a dream.
Beach Without Yoshio
Yoshio’s family owns a beach, and so they all plan on going; except notably, Aoi is missing from the group. Nobody makes note of this.
Yoshio gets into a car accident and cannot go to the beach like he had planned. However, the rest of the cast (minus Aoi, who is still missing) go without him.
The Not-Beach Episode
We get scenes of the girls in their bikinis like any stereotypical beach episode. However, things escalate when the girls find a sign claiming it to be a nudist beach.
They remove their clothes and put a mask on Asahi so he can’t see them naked, and force him to play all sorts of dumb, degrading games. He seems willing enough.
The Day Ends
As they walk back to the house they’ll be lodging in near the beach, Asahi turns around after it goes silent behind him. All of the girls had gone missing.
Asahi goes up to the house, rationalize that they must’ve gotten ahead of him somehow. Not only does he find the house empty, but Aoi — the girl who had been missing up until now — appears behind him.
Attempt at Isolation
Aoi questions what he’s up to, and Asahi seems to forget that he was looking for the girls. He can’t seem to recall what he was doing. Aoi switches up his focus and asks him to help her with dinner, which he obliges.
Yoshio calls Asahi on the phone, and Aoi quickly declines the call before Asahi notices. This happens a few more times until Aoi stabs and shatters his cell phone.
The Show Gets Crazy
Aoi and Asahi go on a walk after dinner, where Aoi leads him to a secluded Sakura tree. She confesses to him again and asks him to stay with her forever.
Asahi remembers about the others and asks her where they went. Aoi asks whether or not it really matters; and notes that she’s been in love with him for years. Asahi is confused but insists on knowing; he states that he cares for all of the girls, not just her.
Aoi then gets swept up in the Sakura petals and morphs into the purple haired girl we saw at the beginning of the episode. Asahi calls her “Ai.” Ai looks up at the stars and repeats the lines we heard earlier, about certain constellations.
She tells him that they can’t be together, and so to “not come back here anymore.” She runs off, and disappears in a sea of electrical glitches — and the word “error” appears around Asahi as if he is in some sort of virtual reality.
Confusion ensues. End Episode.
Opinions / Analysis
This show has been getting stranger and stranger by the episode — I mean, just compare Amelia’s independent episode to Karin’s — but this episode takes the cake.
First of all, I was wondering why Aoi seemingly didn’t get the same treatment as the other girls. She confesses first but had never gotten her own secluded ‘date’ with Asahi.
Ai seems to be the girl in the vision/dream we saw all the way back in episode 1.
Prediction
I’m going to to ahead and start making predictions. I don’t think there IS a wedding nor are any of these girls real. After all, the show has shown that it’s absolutely ridiculous — Mongfa is a retired secret agent and Karin a literal magical girl, for instance. I think that Asahi is in some sort of simulation and the anime tropes are blending together; some sort of malfunction in the machine is happening.
We’ve seen that Asahi truly doesn’t remember Yoshio’s character virtually at all, episode to episode. Not only that, but there are little to no side characters in this anime.
I would be absolutely shocked and disappointed if this is just a “Yandere Aoi” episode like the previous 4 girl-focused episodes.
I have a feeling this is bigger than that, just because we got the reveal of Ai. But who knows, with this show.
For more coverage of the latest episodes, check our other articles:
Urusei Yatsura 2022 Episode 7 Review
Reincarnated as a Sword Episode 9 Review
