天下制覇

Oh, George…

Impressions:

Now this is more like it. Not a particularly surprising episode, but a very nice way to wrap certain things up and a return to the comedy which made this show so much fun in the first place. I absolutely adored Gab and Ag’s Moemobile, complete with Moe license plate and some random woman that I probably should recognize drawn on the hood. Playing Thus Spake Zarathustra while they were buying doujin supplies for Eitarou was just icing on that particular cake. And then there’s George… George, George, George… what are we going to do with you? The sexy reindeer outfit was bad enough, but thinking about him as the next Hapxier is frightening. Poor boy doesn’t handle rejection well.

I’m glad they ended the show like this instead of the ultra serious episodes though. At least this way, we leave with a pleasant impression instead of a complete turn into the pretty mediocre drama. I still wish they had never tried to pull that, but it’s easy enough to just pretend like that one episode never really existed. Sure, it provided some answers to the plot of the show, but if you’re watching this for the deep and enthralling plot, then… well… you confuse me. I could have used a bit more Miyabi and Eneus in a finale, but hell… I’d support a Miyabi and Eneus spinoff.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Brief Summary:

While out window shopping, Takuto sees an action figure that his dad gave him a long time ago. All the girls decide that it’s the perfect Christmas present, but the owner of the shop is whose-her-face-the-loli-demon and she’ll only trade it for some other figure. Luckily, Futaba’s got that figure, and she’s willing to give it to them if they help her family’s store sell cakes. She dresses them up as sexy reindeer or santas and it’s off to work in their usual chaotic fashion. Meanwhile, George is praying the Jesus for guidance, and an angel comes to him. Takuto also receives a visit from an angel, but Miyabi is there to drag him into service helping them finish Eitarou’s doujin.

Back at the cake shop, the violence heats up. George is also somehow dressed up as a sexy reindeer and selling cakes. Meanwhile, Stein gets accosted by some pervert trying to sell him pictures of the girls from the dressing room. He slaps them out of the guy’s hand as being shameful, but goes into Zawazawa mode over the normal pictures of them in reindeer antlers. Trincia and Sagami wander past as the fight heats up and he decides to punish them a bit. Back at Eitarou’s, Miyabi runs out of ink, and Eineus reports that they’re low on other supplies. Luckily, Ag and Gab are there and see the noble endevor and offer to go buy more. So they pop into their ultra moemobile and hit up the print shops.

The time to give the figure as payment has come, but they immediately all get into a fight over it and stampede George when it falls into his hands. They eventually make it back to the toy shop only to find it ransacked. The espers were behind the thief, so they chase them down and try to chariot smack them off the road. Portal boy goes to take the girls out, but Ag and Gab drive past in a hurry, taking him out out of sheer good luck. Sensing trouble, the espers switch their car into super mode, which is apparently a giant Metallis head which throws the other cars out of its way. Falce counters by bringing all the stolen toys to life and the espers are defeated by the swarm of action figures. Unfortunately, the toys already know who they were supposed to be given to, and the girls sadly comply. The children thank ‘Santa’ and her reindeer as they fly into the night.

Dejected, the girls walk home, but run into the real Santa Claus who has a present for them. They happily give it to Takuto, and not only is it the toy he wanted, it’s the exact one that his father gave him. He’s in tears and thanks all the girls with a big hug. Outside, Eitarou talks to Santa/the school principal about the holiday school party. Eitarou says that he’s already got everything he needs, wryly holding up his completed doujin.

At the party, the entire school is transported into another dimension onto a beautiful sky ship. The usual antics start, and we get a montage of all the characters. Of particular note is that George is now Hapxier’s apprentice and dressing like him. Ew. Tanarot and Suzuka’s fight ends up knocking off a huge stone ball which crushes the entire school, but that’s okay… Wasshoi!

Final Thoughts:

Aside from a couple hiccups, this was easily one of the most entertaining comedies of the year for me. The rocket segment and episode 11 notwithstanding, almost every episode featured a lot of subversions on the usual jokes while simultaneously quickly jumping from one joke to the next without drawing the out to the point where they stop being funny. I’m sure a lot of people will be turned off just by the fact that it contains quite a few of the more otaku-centric themes, but they’re presented so differently from the norm that even while it really is pandering, it doesn’t feel like it. Instead of a cloying "oho, look what fetish we’re appealing to now," approach, the fetishists are running the show and screaming that you will adore them or else. It’s a big different from shows with similar themes (Comic Party and Genshiken come to mind) because it’s not presented like some kind of forbidden fruit only loved by the obsessive, but as the pinnacle of human evolution, and it’s that ridiculousness that sets the presentation apart.

Aside from the relatively brain melting OP (which did grow on me more than I thought it would), I was also rather surprised by the show’s excellent use of music throughout. Hapxier’s somewhat dissonant theme was absolutely perfect for him, pretty much every insert song was very well performed and didn’t feel shoehorned into the episodes at all, and they pulled in a lot of classical music to avoid overuse of the standard show BGM. I would have to say that I think some of the voices could have used a little more polish. Falce in particular tended to grate on me quite a bit, though Suzuka seemed to have a fair number of pretty poorly delivered lines as well. Eitarou’s rants were an absolute delight to listen to though, and I wouldn’t change him for the world. The rest of the production values were excellent across the board. Well animated, consistently drawn, and an army of clay figures to censor anything and everything.

So, once again, just like with Penguin Girl, I was betrayed by my own expectations, and the ‘otaku pandering’ comedy ended up being one of my favorite shows for the season. It’s witty, it’s funny, it’s unpredictable, and for all the crying about excessive fanservice people make, there’s always an angel (and his apprentice!) around the corner to show that the joke’s the thing. I do know that many many people never even gave this a shot, or immediately tuned out after seeing the chintastic art design and rampant fetishism, but for the rest of us, this was an excellent comedy and I really wish that more shows tried to subvert the usual fanservice tropes like this instead of using them as fanbait.