天下制覇

Bloody hell.

Impressions:

Boo cliffhangers in final episodes. Don’t do that, dammit!

Another very short (~6 minute) episode unfortunately, and I called Rose being Pengy’s mom at least three weeks ago, so *harumph*! Like I said, I’d have been much much happier if Mary had gotten up and they had gone for the triple tech before Rose took off her ‘elaborate’ disguise and flew off. I’ve never really understood the ugly blue swimsuit fetish, so I honestly preferred Marie’s old disheveled look more. I’m rather sad that we won’t actually get to see what’s up with the evil Pengy, and I really wish that the big finale had been a little longer and involved more of the cast, but eh… it really wouldn’t have been able to match up with the first segment’s finale.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Double straight max recap. Rose goes flying. Blah blah blah. Friendship power!

ROSE IS PISSED.

Kujira falls back into a fighting stance. Rose… smiles and congratulates Pengy.

Kujira demands to know what the hell is going on while Pengy goes into shock. Kujira tells Pengy that it’s time for another double straight, but Pengy’s just shaking.

Rose takes off her hair barrette and a hair curl, suspiciously identical to Pengy’s pops up. Pengy shrieks out that it’s her mother. Kujira’s in shock.

Pengy cowers behind Kujira and demands to know why her mother is here.

Kujira’s struggling to keep up with the soap opera antics. Pengy says that it really is her mother, and goes into flashbacks over how her mother tortured her daily to get her to study, go to school, etc. Pengy’s a bit traumatized, but then thinks it might not really be her because she has a mole. Rose touches her mole and it comes right off. Pengy tries to rationalize that too, but Kujira beats her.

Rose takes the chance to explain herself, basically that she was worried about Pengy because she didn’t make friends. It looks like she was wrong though and Pengy has wonderful ones. She calls a helicopter and flies off. Pengy declares the whole thing a victory for Friendship Power. Kujira glares at her and Mary starts angrily fuming at being drawn into this moronic family nonsense. She and Pengy get into it as usual.

Back at school, Mary’s uniform has been reduced to a swim suit and some ribbons. The White Knights are ecstatic over her elegance. Pengy butts in and glomps Mary, but gets beaten.

Pengy turns instead to ranting at her own friends and glomps Kujira. Xia starts flipping out and Kujira smacks Pengy around. The teacher tries to get the attention of the class because they’ve got transfer students.

It’s Aka and her younger sister Riff. Aka’s a bit terrified, but it’s an order from their pres.

They hug each other and whimper while the rest of the class prepares for revenge. Pengy instantly forgives them, yesterday’s enemy is today’s friend and welcomes them happily. Aka holds out her hand in thanks, but Pengy sneezes and ends up grabbing Aka’s chest. Boingy boingy. 

Pengy backs off immediately, but Aka reaches into her jacket and pulls out a sword. Pengy tries to apologize, but punishment commences.

Rose listens to it all and thinks about how much fun they’ll have. Another Pengy with red eyes and a tan walks out of the shadows and agrees with her mother. 

Final Thoughts:

The main sin this show committed was being extremely short. Each week varied in length from a paltry 5 minutes to up to 12. Unfortuately, the second half featured many more short episodes than it did longer ones. I can only imagine that they started running out of whatever small budget they had in this bizarre netcast only experiment. It’s really a pity because this would have been a very strong show and is certainly well above average in overall production, but that could also be an artifact of its very short length. I do believe that the second half was much weaker than the first. Between all the Black Rose stuff and the two episode time travel arc, there just wasn’t as much wacky humor as the first half. In addition, many of the likeable characters, for example Xia Ci and Kaede were all but kicked off screen.

I do hope that they decide to continue it at some very soon future point, but it’s site lists it as on indefinite break, so I imagine that unless the DVD sales are pretty killer, this is the last we’ll see of Pengy and the gang, aside from whatever silliness they do for the next week or two until the DVD release. I’ll miss you, Sakura.