天下制覇

Nozomi… what?

Impressions:

This was rather weird. I’m glad that they didn’t completely succumb to the melodrama, particularly since it ended up being pretty trivial, but it was a very odd juxtaposition to have "NOZOMI IS SUPER AWESOME AND NEEDS HER CRACK TO LIVE" sitting next to more athletics festival stuff and Nozomi’s unholy bloomer/spats combination. Meanwhile, Horie (I still have no idea what her name is) and the new pres character from last week spent most of the epsiode draped around each other like some kind of sloppily made chick lasagna.

I also found the irony of Fumino of all people giving Nozomi the "be true to your feelings" speech at the start to be more than a little bizarre, if not outright wrong. I think that the writers realized that they didn’t have a Fumino quote for the finale montage and had to quickly create one. It all just boiled down to the expected "Nozomi’s our family" bit anyway, and the woman just wanted to give Nozomi her meds and have her call every now and then. Can’t say that I expected too much different, but… eh. Whatever.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Final Thoughts:

I never really expected much out of this show and it never particularly surprised nor overly disappointed me. It remained at a realtively constant level of brain-deadlessness (which if it isn’t a word, should be) throughout the entire run. The gimmick of switching up directors every week was a little interesting, but it really didn’t do the show any favors. I’m still not sure what the mech episode was supposed to be or how anybody would have approved something like that without even the most tenuous tie-in like it being a dream sequence. It’s just… there…

The characters range from cliche to unremarkable, as did the production. Every now and then there were glimmers of some real character development, especially in the opening few episodes, but that got reset with nary a backward glance before the completely random middle 9 or so episodes took over. There’s nothing wrong with being a gag comedy, but it’s also hard to build up any kind of momentum or good character jokes when each new director handles the characters differently. Nozomi’s meowing and cuteness can only take the show so far on its own.

It’s forgettable. There are worse things to be, sure, but in a month, I doubt anybody’s going to care about this one way or the other. I’m not going to remember the show with any real distaste, but I can’t imagine recommending anybody go out of their way to watch it either.