Occult Academy #13 — SPOOOOON

September 27th, 2010

 

The silverware that would rule the world.

Impressions:

Well, it was a much better ending than I was expecting, and the twist that the camera picture in the last episode was showing that Uchida was the key, not Cure Black was actually clever for once. Maybe that was their plan all along. Drown us in so much overwhelming nonsense that our senses and brains are dulled. Uchida sacrificing himself as he waves a spoon like a mental hospital patient is about as fitting a death as he could hope for. The first half of the episode was still pretty dreadfully boring, but at least the ending was kind of amusing for all its silliness and spoon waving.

Anyway, the alien invasion was caused by the paradox of Uchida meeting himself, which also resulted in the loop of him stealing his own powers from his child self which he then used to fight the aliens and sacrifice himself in the process. I guess what they were going for is that somewhere in the time paradox loop, Adult Uchida was too big of a wimp to fight the aliens but still stole his own powers? We’re into temporal paradox causality loops where the entire show was caused by the very premise of the show. Who even knows. A-1 had their gimmick and didn’t care about filling in any details about making it make a damn bit of sense.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

 

Final Thoughts

Yuck. Great first episodes that devolve into a mess seem to be the theme for this season, and this show was the worst offender by far. The writing was simply all over the place with no focus and a wildly inconsistent world. At the start, it was wonderfully atmospheric, but then it got cartoonish, then maudlin, and somehow ended up with magical girls shooting lasers. Unfortunately, for all the time it spends with the tertiary characters, none of them are compelling in any way, shape or form. Even the lead two are more or less the exact same at the end as they were in the start. Bunmei sort of manned up at the end in a brief little 30 second segment of fighting lasers with a spoon, but that alone should tell you that it was not a particularly well thought out scene.

At least it was one of the more consistently produced shows of the season. Certainly not impressive, but it had its moments every now and then. I was also glad that they started toning down the upskirt shots on Maya’s black hole of a crotch after the first couple episodes. That was just disturbing. Although, if the show had maintained that same kind of energy and focus that it had through that disturbing phase, then the silliness and world inanity would have been a lot more forgivable. It really was killed by laying down the central plot of the world is about to be destroyed and then having the characters get distracted by every trivial little mystery that pops up.

I really wouldn’t recommend this one. The first few episodes were good, but then it simply plummeted off a cliff into an ocean of awful writing and time-filler until a final arc that was so nonsensical and out of place that it was sort of amusing again. I still have no idea why Mikaze was killing previous Uchidas, but wanted to seduce this one. Or how/why she brought a fake dead body to life in the first episode. Nothing in this show makes a lick of sense and A-1 didn’t even bother to try to hide that.  

Posted in Occult Academy | 12 Comments »

12 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • rufe says:

    soo….what happened to Bunmei’s mother?

  • tabs05 says:

    “We wants it. We needs it. My precious.”

    One spoon to rule them all was very appropriate. I mean was really looking forward to this when I stumbled on the series a month ago but it just self destructed after episode 3. I recommend just watching the first 3 episodes and last 2, you’re not going to miss much and it pretty much tells the whole story and you still get to see the hot kiss with Mikaze. Anyway, I’ll go back and watch Bunmei’s 30 seconds of fame..err…redemption one more time.

  • malrock says:

    Hah, I actually enjoyed this show the most out of everything that aired this season. It really reminded me of an anime version of the X-Files. I especially enjoyed the interaction between Bunmei & Maya. I could have done without the ball-less Bunmei moments but I think they made him such a wimp to have him ultimately redeem himself in the end and save the world…… although technically I guess he was the cause of the destruction of the world too…. Anyway, I wonder when kid Bunmei had sex with highschool Maya.

  • nothikago says:

    That’s what Shana said.

  • ark noir says:

    Spoon title deserves a 1+

    Wasn’t Abe like 3 seconds away from committing a pedo crime via nearly confessing to Maya??

    Wasn’t Maya like 3 sec….no wait she did commit a crime

    Vintage time slip endings

  • RaiKitsune says:

    Sadly this show ended by creating a giant supermassive plot hole. This was le depressing.

  • Anonymous says:

    Wait a minute, if Bunmei took his kid self’s power, how did the first Bunmei lose his power?

  • Anonymous says:

    everything aside how does one seal a dimensional rift with psychokinesis ?