REVIEW: ‘Love After World Domination,’ Episode 4 – “Could You Please Tell Me Why?”

Love After World Domination is a romantic comedy anime produced by Project No. 9. After their visit to the amusement park, Fudou and Desumi continue to pursue their romantic relationship. Unbeknownst to them, Haru has begun to suspect that Fudou is dating someone. Will she learn the truth? And if she does, what will it mean for our two young lovebirds in Love After World Domination Episode 4?

This week’s episode has a lot of twists to it, so I’m going to do my best to avoid spoilers. There are a lot of moments that come off as predictable trope moments that don’t end in the way one is likely to assume. This was a relief to me. When Love After World Domination Episode 4 opened with Desumi spying Fudou in a cafe with his teammate Haru(Pink Gelato), I feared this story would devolve into a predictable lover’s quarrel.

Rather than take this obvious route, the story crafts its narrative around the more personal struggles of its characters. Desumi and Fudou do end up having a confrontation over what Desumi witnessed, but not for the reasons you expect. This allows the show to have the drama one expects, but for reasons that make the moment far more personal than just another walk through a tired trope about an overly jealous girlfriend.

Interwoven into this narrative is Haru’s continued concern about Fudou allowing himself to become distracted from his commitment to the team due to a romantic entanglement. Much like the other side of Love After World Domination Episode 4‘s narrative, this plot thread also develops differently than you initially assume.

This story beat ends up doing a great job of building up our main protagonists, as well as introducing the viewer to Haru’s character fully in a way that makes it so you almost didn’t realize it happened. This smooth character-building speaks highly of the show’s creativity and I’m looking forward to seeing if the series can continue to integrate the rest of the cast into plot lines so well.

The animation brings the episode’s core conflict to life in a perfectly over-the-top way. While I sometimes struggle with anime getting a bit exaggerative with character responses to things, when one of them is literally a supervillain, it feels a bit more natural for the fists to fly.

Despite a surprising amount of fighting and the show’s usual generous portion of humor, Love After World Domination Episode 4 still serves up a solid amount of emotion. And with only one exception, each of these moments feels genuine. The show manages to reign in the absurdity to allow these heartfelt moments to land skillfully.

When all is said and done, Love After World Domination Episode 4 continues to deliver on its humor, emotion, and action. While I continue to enjoy spending time with Fudou and Desumi, I’m even more intrigued by what surprises the show has planned where the rest of the cast is concerned.

Love After World Domination Episode 4 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.