天下制覇

Apparently it’s stronger than galactic bombs.

Just FYI, to stick it somewhere, I am aware of the LvB DVD bonus, but I really really wish I wasn’t. The physics are… mindboggling…

Impressions:

Credit where credit is due. This episode was amazing. Not that it was good, just that it was amazing in that anybody would have ever approved of any part of this. First Torch reveals that he’s not a huge fan of the whole mutual obliteration thing, so Tuxedo Mask tells Shade to kill him. Since Shade won’t, Tux ‘kills’ Torch and in return, Shade apparently permanently blinds Tuxedo Mask, completely emasculating him for the rest of the episode. That’s it. The big villain, master of time and space, psychopath extraordinaire… was completely defeated by being blinded.

From there, Eclair freezes Saphir the moment that she gets distracted, and that’s the last that we see of the other antagonist aside from her dropping into the galaxy bomb. Tuxedo Mask then turns into sparklies so that Ascouer can absorb his power (seriously… what?) and one final pair of lesbian power kisses later, the world is saved. Oh right, and Rubis took a full space transport engine blast to let all the nobles escape. I’m sure one of the more obsessed Kiddy Grade fans can tell me who the hell Mii was supposed to be, because I don’t remember him at all. Given the way that they just dropped him in to do… nothing… I don’t really want to spare it a second thought either. Then we cut ahead and everybody is fine again. Rubis has a broken leg, Torch and Shade are having a gay ol’ picnic together, and the five masters of space and time are back to working as clumsy waitresses. Tee. Hee. Hee.

Final Thoughts:

Well, the first half of this show was… decent enough. The early parody filled episodes and the… yaoi cafe… were all a lot of fun. Even beyond that, the action was solid, it was well animated, and there was the hope that even though it was a rehash, the whole nobles thing would actually grow into something. Instead, once they decided to get to the story they wanted to tell, everybody’s power suddenly changed to "I can make things stop moving," the plot was flushed right down the crapper, and amnesia became the plot mechanic du jour with kissing as the deus ex machina that got them out of every single damned crisis. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time Ascouer used her little light saber. Did they just get tired of it?

So to wrap up, a fun start that just becomes progressively stupider and stupider (and that’s saying a lot for a show with an episode begging a little girl to drink his man milk) and less well produced until the ending is the villain turning into sparklies for no explainable reason. I wonder if all the production chaos that surrounded this one are the cause of the disaster that this turned into, but we’ll probably never know. It certainly didn’t do Kiddy Grade any favors at any rate. Some of the early comic episodes are great, but after that… steer clear. Steer far clear.