天下制覇

 

At least there was only some Mako.

Impressions:

So, Kill la Kill, are we here to fight or talk this week? And with a resounding cry came back “TALK!” Even when Frieza finally hauled her ass off the crucifix she had spent the first 10 minutes of the episode pontificating and watching the Job Squad continue to job, and/or reset everything that ‘happened’ toward the end of last week, they missed the mark by just being silly. But that’s pretty much all in the second half. If you skipped the last minute or two of last week and the first 10 minutes of this week, the cut would be almost imperceptable. Yeah, yeah. It did improve significantly after that, but not enough and still falling prey to the same old corny cliches that it’s been beating its head against for nearly the entire run.

The brain enslavement, which I guess is the figurepiece of the episode, could have been cool if it not for a number of things, but primarily the corny brain-centric visuals, explaining it, Ryuko almost immediately just yanking it out because protagonist powers yo, and that this is about the eight or ninth time that a character has instantly defeated an army of mooks. You’ve bled that stone dry. It’s time to find another one. Preferably one that doesn’t involve protagonist power up ’cause I believe! Or really, any lesson coming from PaRappa. Same goes for antagonist power cause it’s not the last episode yet! My annoyance with Japan trying to sell character menace through awful one-sided fights where a character suddenly becomes utterly incompetent and helpless is a battle I doubt I’ll ever win though. It was especially bad this episode though, particularly when they tried to put both Nui and Ryuko on both sides of it. The transitive property of power levels is crying.

And the heart ripping is even less jarring when it’s the third or fourth ‘dramatic’ ‘death’ ‘finger quotes’ ‘addiction’ of an episode after crucifiction, vivisection, beheading, and anything else I may have forgotten were all shrugged off as juvenile hijinks. Particularly for the main character this far from the ending. They could have at least used one of the Job Squad to maybe sell the idea that they’d kill someone and have it stick for the seven days before resetting it like usual, probably by having Mako hug her.

Next Episode:

   

Dripping water, chest heads, and the Job Squad.