Chio's School Road Episode 11 Review: Chio in the Middle of the Night – Apocri

Really good episode out this week, sad to see this show finishing.

Japanese Title: 真夜中のちおちゃん / あぽくり!

Plot

Chio is spending her nights playing video games, that is no news to anyone. The first part the episode is basically about just that and her devising a way to not miss sleep and still manage to go to school while she is completely unable to wake up to alarms, after having an argument with her mom.

The second part of the episode is dedicated to bodily odor, and Manana discovering that this is like, a thing. Get ready for a lot of awkward armpit smelling and references to wild animals.

Episode Highlights

Damn girl: Chio betraying her comrades was a real cherry on this episode – would have never thought she’d do something like that. Did remind me of the way I used to play chaotic-evil-character-based RPGs and just messing up the whole quest just for the lulz. Would never imagine she would actually be considering this as a viable career, although it was pretty cute. I’d pay to watch this. Also, don’t do online searches on how to rob banks.

Insomnia: I can’t think of anything more relatable to make an episode on other than pulling an all-nighter playing games or somehow wasting your time on the internet, to the point where you can get no sleep whatsoever. Pro tip: stay in bed, even if you can’t sleep.

BO: Even more relatable to me than white nights – the battle with bodily odor is one I’ve lost many a time. I did get the feels when Manana was talking about Chio’s struggles with stinking; I have basically spent my life showering twice a day and wearing 3 different types of deodorant to deal with the ‘wild game’. Pro tip: tape a sponge under your armpits.

Themes & Trivia

Yoogle Chome: A very complex high-context reference to Google Chrome.

Payday: The game Chio is playing is an obvious reference to Payday – an FPS cooperative game mostly revolving around armed robberies. However, to my knowledge, permanently eliminating your comrades like Chio did is not possible during the game.

Half-exit?: Noticed the poster in Chio’s bedroom? A reference to the iconic game Half-Life, whose third installment has yet to see the light of day. The reference is quite interestingly built – the ‘L’ on the Half-Life logo is the lowercase Greek letter ‘lamda’ (λ), which very much looks like the Japanese kanji for entrance (入). However, the kanji on Chio’s wall is actually the one for exit (出). Pretty cool, huh?

Guest animator: Did you find there to be one too many butt-shots of Chio in this episode? I sure as hell did. The reason why is because the guest Animation Director for this episode is Kimura Takeshi, who is credited with a wide variety of hentai production. Needless to say that lewd content not being my cup of tea, I was not impressed. Everyone else on the internet was, though.

Almost over

I am going to miss this show. Very much looking forward to the last episode.

How did you find this Chio’s School Road episode? Let us know in the comment section! And don’t forget to check the rest of the Summer 2018 anime reviews on MANGA.TOKYO!

Episode 11 Preview