天下制覇

So side-splitting that we had to see it thrice.

Impressions:

My patience with this show is beginning to run a bit thin. The lack of a plot would be forgivable if I liked these characters, but both Lan and Madoka have been reduced nothing more than caricatures designed to act like idiots and spout off their catchphrase/bark every now and then. Like I’ve said before, the silliness doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the show and they’re not committing enough in either direction so it’s all just a tepid mess. You can’t go from Lan barking and holding a bat upside down (which was apparently so hilarious that the production staff thought we should see it three goddamned times over the course of the episode) to "holy crap, enemies! Take me seriously! Woof!"

Muginami’s somehow not so much leaped to the front of the pack as rolled over the corpses of the others on the merits of not having any terrible gimmicks based around her. Her ‘brother’ (or whatever, Japanese being what is it…) attacking her was almost a good step, but then he hopped into his giant robot that was being conveniently hidden about two feet off-camera and flew away because that’s what his inscrutable plan said to do. If they’d commit already, it could at least be an interesting mess instead of tepid one. I like those. They’re fun to write about. Like a trainwreck of giraffes strapped to landmines. You never know what’s going to happen. This… however… flashback… nothing happens… nothing happens… nothing happens… nothing happens… Muginami gets choked… Big bad flies away. Note: He died on the way back to his home planet.

Preview:

At least they’re hitting things again.