天下制覇

Apparently the title’s not adjective wordplay and is actually "full." Okay then, if you say so.

Impressions:

Well, I guess it’s not insultingly bad like the other two shows today were, but almost perhaps worse, it’s bland as hell. I should also note that this episode was also shorter than most shows by a good couple minutes. I’d be more annoyed if I was actually enjoying watching it. I think my interest peaked in the opening minutes when Chihaya appeared wreathed in a bouquet of cherry blossoms while putting up posters. That made me laugh at least. It may also have been the last time I felt any emotion while watching this episode. Of course, partway through, I realized what was bothering me about the art style, namely the really terrible job they did shading faces. Then once I realized it, I couldn’t stop staring at it. As you might expect, both art and animation were pretty poor here all around too. The music was often obnoxious too, although not nearly as muchso as Mashiro’s was. I’m appreciating what Hal did with Tamayura on Sunday all the more.

The writing, unambitious as it was, was also fairly weak. The first quarter of the episode was the present time before heading back to a flashback for the remainder of the episode. I am a lot more accepting of flashbacks at the beginning when they aren’t breaking up events already in progress, but this wasn’t well connected to what came before it at all. If you watched just the first five minutes and the last five minutes of this episode, you’d think they were two completely different shows. The story itself was very bland and generic too. Girl wants to be friends with taciturn boy, discovers he loves nonsensical Japanese card game and has the Eye of the Cards, episode ends, rocks fall, everybody dies.

So… meh. I don’t feel anything for this at all. At least I know that I can write (and how!) about the other two Tuesday shows. This was like You and Me yesterday, just blandness heaped onto more blandness with some terrible shading on top. I’d rather really relish sinking my teeth into something bad than even paying attention to something that doesn’t evoke anything at all.