天下制覇

And unsurprisingly, it drives him insane.

I most certainly did not forget that this came out last week and let it slip under my radar. No, sir.

Thank you, Sterling.

Impressions:

Actually though, this was a little disappointing, and certainly not helped by the random yelling for the interstitial being "Second Season’s Starting!" followed by "Just kidding." Way to twist the knife, SynergySP. The problem with it is that this was at least a three or four episode arc crammed into 23.5 minutes. Minamoto’s mindraped into obeying Phantom Daughter with the ultimate goal of recreating the future scene in order to kill Kaoru. Along the way, she destroys BABEL, captures half of BABEL and PANDRA’s espers, forcing the remainder to team up before an all out assault on the charred remains of BABEL. Rushing it barely even begins to cover the pacing with this one. Hell, the most action time anybody got was BABEL and PANDRA fighting their brain controlled others. Even Nai versus Kyosuke just got lost off-screen somewhere.

Pacing problems aside (and that’s a pretty massive bit of leeway), it was decent, although far too Kaoru-centric for my tastes. Sakaki had the best moment sof the whole thing, shutting Kyosuke up when he started to go into his usual "tsundere for Minamoto" persona at the end as well as now being some kind of expert helicopter-based sniper. The plot was largely forgettable (yet another "Kaoru’s the Queen, gasp, shock, oh no" fest) without any real twist beyond her being unable to resist Minamoto when he makes doe eyes at her. I had hoped Minamoto as the Darkness Knight would do something a little more impressive than upload a computer virus and deliver explosive baked goods too. At least he finally got some heterosexual activity from somebody above 10 years old, even if he was kicking and screaming the entire time.

Brief Summary:

Minamoto arrives back at BABEL, but immediately uploads a virus and bombs the front desk. The Children are called back and can’t believe it. After they leave, it’s discovered that Minamoto’s escaped. He ECMs and gasses the girls. Kaoru wakes up a short time later, and Minamoto tells her that she needs to destroy a tank right away to save the other two. Kaoru blasts it and tosses it around, only to find the two of them inside it, now badly hurt. Minamoto congratulates her and Phantom Daughter appears, saying that Minamoto/The Darkness Knight is her new puppet before teleporting away.

At school, the robot Children are fooling nobody. Phantom Daughter attacks BABEL’s espers at the pool and takes Double Face and Bullet. Minamoto works his magic on Kaoru, but Sakaki interrupts. Nai takes him out, but Kyosuke intervenes and chases them away. As Kyosuke is explaining that this is PANDRA’s problem too now, Mio and Patty teleport in, telling them that they were attacked. Mio yells at Kaoru not to roll over and to be the Queen. Shiho and Aoi also finally wake up and lend their support. Kaoru calls out Phantom Daughter to settle it.

Phantom Daughter attacks BABEL and the espers peel off each other until just Minamoto is on the roof with Kaoru. Thanks to Kyosuke, Minamoto manages to shake off part of the control before he shoots, giving Kaoru an opening to blast him. Phantom Daughter retreats, abandoning her control over all the others. Sakaki rushes to Minamoto’s aid and Kyosuke also helps heal him. Minamoto wakes up and Kaoru promises that she’ll always be his "Children." Hooray, Engrish. Aoi and Shiho are not amused.