Studio: Kyoto Animation
Publisher: Sentai Filmworks
Distributor: Section23
Release Date: October 17th, 2017
Are you ready to return to worlds unknown? No? How about a magical adventure in your own neighborhood? Hmm, still no, eh? How about a high school love story with plenty of delusions? And! Cute girls doing cute chuuni things! Sold! Welcome to the story of Rikka Takanashi and Yuuta Togashi. Published by Sentai Filmworks and distributed by Section23, Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions! Rikka Version (Chu2:RK) is a really good recap movie from the perspective of the Wielder of the Eye of the Wicked Lord herself!
Rikka Takanashi is a freshman in high school who hasn’t moved past her ‘Eight-Grader Syndrome’, also known as chuunibyou. Her ever-faithful servent, Sanae Dekomori, wishes to hear the story of how Rikka and the Dark Flame Master (Yuuta) fell in love with each other from Rikka’s side. Thus starts the arduous journey of a girl seeing things from the eyes of a delusioned high-school freshman’s standpoint. After all, just because a girl wears an eyepatch to seal the pretend Wicked Lord’s Eye and bandages wrapped around her arm to seal some imagined darkness inside it, doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to fall in love!
Chu2:RK was definitely a fun watch. Years ago, I marathoned the first season of Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai (the romaji version of the Japanese title) with my little bro. We both loved how crazy the animation was and the story wasn’t half-bad either. After all, crazy high-school girls who think they wield magic powers want to love and be loved, as well. This movie is basically a recap of the first season told mostly through scenes from the anime. While there are some new parts that perfectly set up for season two (which I have not seen yet), if you’ve seen the first season, you’ve basically seen this movie.
However, Chu2:RK is just too good to give up watching, in my opinion. As someone who hadn’t seen the series in quite a long time, this movie was great for rekindling the feelings I had while watching this with my bro. Watching the ‘Lite’ special was also nice and I’m happy that it was on both the Blu-ray and DVD. Not only that, but the English dub is actually pretty nice. It took a bit for me to get used to Rikka’s voice actress, but I ended up loving her the most due to her acting of Rikka being on-point. I’m looking forward to the main series in English due to how enjoyable it actually was to listen to it dubbed.
In the end, Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions! Rikka Version was a nice recap to the series. With a SRP of $39.98 USD for the BD/DVD combo on the Sentai Filmworks store, I recommend this movie to anyone who hasn’t seen the second season yet. If you haven’t watched the first season, you may want to wait until next month to pick up the Complete Series version that comes out then. If you enjoy the series after that, I also highly recommend picking this up. Be sure to open up your Mabinogian and pray to the silent spirits of your dark history!
Lolinia gives Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions! Rikka Version a Drastik Moé Measure of 7.5 out 10.0 (75).
PS. Call 1-800 Abundant Delusions to find your nearest Far-East Magical Napping Society!
