天下制覇

I think I missed that episode of Death Note.

Impressions:

The parodies were fast and furious with this one. The Death Note -> Yume Note is easy. Once sucked into Yume’s weird world where she was a hero of justice with her sisters, there was a Mikuru Beam, a Kaede box-cutter drop, sentai posing and explosions, a Sailor Moon transformation sequence, etc etc etc… and that’s just the first half. The Death Note parody at the very start was especially funny, but most of it was pretty quality all around… and that’s without even touching on Yume running off to class after forgetting to put on her panties or Mihato’s flipflopping routine between horrible assassin and sparkling happiness.

There really wasn’t much of a sensical plot this time (which is the way I like it). After some randomness at the start, Ren stumbled into Yume’s room and was drawn to the Yume Note and started reading her own story about saving casual-wear Venis from a bear with the help of her sisters, and then transforming into a magical girl to defeat it. Ren got fired up by it and wanted her to share her ideas with the family. Yada yada more bonding with Yume.

The second half of the episode was kind of weak (though I did get a chuckle out of Mihato’s Fist of the North Star attack), but the first half was great, so I’m pleased. Yume, despite her annoying voice, remains one of my favorite characters on the show. I think it’s the fact that she’s one of the few that actually looks relatively normal, pink hair notwithstanding. Low cut jeans and a casual t-shirt are far preferable to the 1920 New York style outfits (or the maid/butler suits, obviously) that the rest of the cast is trapped in. She’s also a rather good vehicle for parody since her character is a lot more malleable than the others. Possibly. It’s also possible that I’m just spewing flimsy rationalizations at this point. The point is… Yume is great.

Preview:

Ninja! And Ageha. But ninja! Also Mihato in a dark room with her head between her knees. ORZ Mihato…