Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs

Episode 9

After being mostly absent for the last few episodes, Chisaki finally resurfaces, into the spotlight no less. With the tone of the series also shifting entirely back to a lighthearted approach, a golden opportunity for packing in the highest concentration of fanservice this series has featured to date emerges. This episode certainly takes advantage of that.

The end of the arc concerning the Dragon God allows the story to revisit Chisaki and the relationship she was starting to form with Yuuna. A few episodes ago the two figured out a way that they could still communicate two-way even if Chisaki can't see or hear Yuuna directly, and that forms the basis for this full-episode story. Yuuna's invitation for Chisaki to visit the Yuragi Inn provides a premise tailor-made for all kinds of sexy shenanigans, especially with Oboro around and still hell-bent on having Kogarashi's child. As shocking as that whole scene is to Chisaki, she also gradually learns that sexy antics go on even when Kogarashi isn't around, such as when she agrees to stay overnight and beds down in Yuuna's room (since Kogarashi is expected to be gone for the night). There she gets first-hand experience with the way that Yuuna flops all over Kogarashi as she sleeps. Things get even more comically sexy when Kogarashi arrives back in the night and flops down beside her without realizing that she's there, which leads to all sorts of additional complications. Only in anime – and only when most participants are asleep – could a character find herself in the kind of exposed duress that Chisaki finds herself in, accidentally planting both her bare chest and her bare crotch in the protagonist's face in the same scene. And that's on top of the sleepy Koyuzu getting a little too friendly too. Chisaki's expressions during this sequence are classic stuff.

Really, there's not much else to talk about in the episode beside the fan service. Chisaki gets additional first-hand confirmations that Kogarashi really is a good guy with a traditional set of values when it comes to sexual activity (only with someone he's seriously in love with), and we find out that Sagiri, upon first contact with Chisaki, regards her enviously as an ideal of teen femininity. Koyuzu is also getting better enough at her transformations that she could soon get actively involved in the sexy goings-on, too, but that's about it for character development. This is a light, fun episode if you're into the fan service aspect (and why would you be watching this series if you weren't?), and it does operate very effectively on that level, but there's nothing else here to recommend it.

Rating: B-

Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.