天下制覇

No taxation without animation.

Impressions:

Blah blah blah Kitamura Kitamura Kitamura. I hated you before, I hate you now and I hope that we never have to see your face again. Especially since he can now go back to being an asexual blob since Sumire is off in America and never gave an answer to his confession anyway. DON’T CHANGE THE STATUS QUO. OKAY. GOOD. GREAT. THIS ARC HAS BEEN WORTHWHILE. At least the music was nice.

There were really only two things of note this episode and both happened at the very end. The interesting one was Minori finally getting it into her thick skull that Taiga likes Kitamura, not Ryuuji, and Ami essentially saying "You should hit that." Of course, we’re nobody’s fool here, and Minori is about as qualified to carry on a relationship as a cocker spaniel, and if anybody really thinks Ryuuji’s going to end up with anybody aside from Taiga, you need your head checked. The important thing here is that it’s movement away from Kitamura, and that’s always a good thing. The sooner we get to the Ami and Minori lesbian comforting scene after Ryuuji breaks their hearts anything else, the better.

I’d also be a little remiss if I didn’t at least mention the silly ‘action’ scene. Where have I seen this kind of art for animation substitution before… hmmm? It makes even less sense to switch the style since the whole thing lasted all of 20 seconds, fewer if you cut out the random shouting. It’s nice to see them at least making an effort, but it was over the top, the art looked horrible, and completely out of place. I make fun of Casshern for less grievously gimpy action scenes and this really just felt awkward more than anything else. Well, at least they tried, so kudos to them for that. It wasn’t horrible by any means, but it’s something that I expect to look very very different when they have a chance to touch it up for the DVDs.

Preview:

Christmas means donut hats.