This episode was extremely fun and creative at a visual level, but I can't say I'm a fan of how this episode handled Haru.
While it's true that Taku is made to suffer a lot in this show, at least some of it is genuinely funny (sorry, but the scenes of Chiyu using him as a weapon were pretty funny to me
).
But with Haru, some of his dialogue and interactions with KYH were just downright
cringe-worthy here. It honestly made me feel uncomfortable watching them. Especially since this feels like another character regression to me...
The first time (when Noumi started bullying him), I could understand Haru taking a step or two back from previous character development. Sometimes in life you relapse into your old weaknesses and failings, particularly if some catalyst causes this to occur.
But I don't see any real catalyst for Haru's regression here, so I found it pretty disappointing for him to act so insanely clumsy in his interactions with KYH and handling of even slight female affection. Hopefully this is just an OVA sort of thing for his character...
Those complaints being made, I absolutely loved the character designs for KYH and Chiyu when they were fighting this new antagonist (and she herself was kickass both as "Trick or Trigger!" and as that giant bug-like enemy). The super hero comic book fan in me just adored it, as KYH and Chiyu both looked like characters straight out of the Justice League in this episode.
Overall, I give this episode
8/10, as the visual creativity and cool action scenes mostly made up for the occasionally cringe-worthy dialogue and Haru moments.