天下制覇

Keep her away from hard drives.

Impressions:

Ah, GA. You are one of the few glorious little sparkling lights for this season that brightens up my week. Another pretty unfocused episode with the second half having practically nothing to do with the first. I had hoped they’d spend a lot more time on designing a mascot character for the blood drive, but sadly, that only lasted maybe two minutes before they all got distracted and tried to play word association games to brainstorm. Otherwise though, not really much in the way of actual art this week, but a lot of focus on the lovely Nozaki and, at least for the first part, the also adorable Usami as well.

Speaking of Nozaki, and if I may go off on a tangent for a moment, one thing that I absolutely adore that AIC has done with the series is the clothing and hair styles for all the characters. Noda tends to overshadow all the rest with her strangely color jackets and rapidly changing hairstyles, but despite them all being in the same school uniform, they managed to make each stand out above and beyond the obligatory anime hair styles. Nozaki’s got her super stylish hip belt and usually goes without a jacket (not to mention the super stylish puffy socks), Tomo shows off her masculinite by ditching the ribbon, Kisaragi’s sleeves are too long, etc. They’re all subtle details, but you do unconsciously pick up on those things and they work to reinforce the characters. Of course, it also helps that everybody does change in and out of their normal clothing ‘mode’ a lot as well, so it’s easier to see all the differences.

Anyway, back to the episode, like always, I’m really not entirely certain what to say beyond pointing out some of the jokes that I found particularly great. Prof’s natural magnetism was a great one, as was Tomokane leaping to her princess’ aid, only to drink the ‘magical healing drink’ herself. Pill popping Usami trying to bulk up for the next blood drive was also worth a chuckle. I also must confess some relief that AIC seems to at least be aware of how ridiculous and redundant their show’s name is. Not that it’s stopping them from plastering it on an eyecatch, but I think I have faith that at least somewhere in their company is someone rolling their eyes at the redundancy. Possibly the same person who then let this particular shot of Noda slip through out of spite.

We got new ED animation this week too. Notice how they’re switching the ED animation whenever it’s Horie’s turn to sing? It’s okay though, I favor her too.

ED #3 (Nozaki ver)

Preview:

Pretty girls. Tasty crepes. Evil Nodas.