天下制覇

Is this seriously Xebec?

Impressions:

An actually rather nice, calm, and surprisingly, even a little bit touching episode. Although now that I think about it, LvB also had a very nice episode after its somewhat painful opening one. They handled the scene of Yuuno’s trauma from her boyfriend trying to force himself on her and then attacking her very well, especially given the relative ultra-violence to the rest of the show. Presentation is everything, and they nailed the difference between the two extremely well. There were some other things more bizarre though. The T&A is oddly absent for a Xebec show and I think the director hasn’t quite figured that out yet. Take this shot for example. Are collarbones the new cleavage? Why did you just zoom in on her neck? I don’t want to complain about more taste being in a Xebec show, but… that was just weird. The art also slipped a bit a few times, especially in the distance scenes between Tarou and Yuuno, resulting in some really funky eyes and faces. The ending ‘cliffhanger’ was also abrupt and really didn’t fit there.

Aside from a brief interlude of Tatsukuchi going into some kind of otherworldly spoiled rich woman mode and Tarou’s family trying to bang him, it was just Yuuno from start to finish. This episode did do a much better job introducing and selling Yuuno as a character, and she did go up a few marks in my book. She’s cute, there’s no doubt about that, but the whole man-hanting/Inami-clone schtick is old. She is trying to change and they sold the reason for her fear well though so… she gets a pass for now.  I do hope that Xebec advances their relationship more because they’re cute to watch together. Either that, or their mutual self-destruction is assured.

Brief Summary:

Tarou sees Yuuno skip a train on the way home and starts talking to her. He learns that she’s afraid of men (good work, genius), but she wants to change, so calls him more informally and laughs when he comes to her like a dog. She asks him to help her study to keep improving. He agrees, and drags along Tatsu in drag to further help. Tatsu lavishes the attention and turns into narcissistic craze until Mio beats it out of him. Montage, and then test goes great for all.

Later, tickets to the zoo for everybody, so the club sets up Tarou and Yuuno alone to work on fixing both. It goes well except for a single incident, fixed by a Mio-can to the back of the head. At closing time, Tarou asks what happened to make her afraid of men. She was pressured into going out with a guy by her friends, who pinned her against the wall and tried to kiss her. When she fought back, he turned violent. Yuuno breaks down in tears, but a mail from Mio gets them back into a happy mood. On the way home, Tarou steals her phone and puts his number into it because he’s a giant blushing ninny. There’s also a girl waiting outside Yuuno’s house.

Preview:

Cooking and how to properly baste your sadist.