天下制覇

Who builds a brick maze just for a festival?

Impressions:

Four episodes from the end, therefore it’s time to stop putzing around and kick the plot into overdrive, rewrite some characters, toss in developments out of nowhere, etc etc. A little sooner than most shows, but as awkwardly handled as ever. Agemaki somehow ended up the least affected by the mess, even if he was still the typical poorly spoken Japanese romantic male protagonist. "You know how I feel about you, right?" Although after what seemed like half an hour of Touma failing to put together the sentence "Step away from that pole," that’s about as direct as one can hope from a JC Staff protagonist.

There was a lot going on in the second half of the episode, but it was all just thrown violently at the audience in a clear disregard for pacing or direction. Hanadate just comes out and says that he’s going to rape Zakuro and wants her to have his baby. Because all girly shows must eventually have rape in some way or form. Or jamming some girl’s lips against a noh mask. Was that supposed to be a kiss? He’s also some kind of completely pure… something that hates him the filthy demonses. Oh, also, half-demons are born in that place modeled after half-demon girl Jesus, which happens to be Zakuro, who has a seal on her power which is totally not going to be some deus ex nonsense to save the day. Lovely. Because what Zakuro has been known for so far is her gentleness and love for all people, especially her enemies. And male half-demons ate her mother.

It’s almost enough to make you forget the weird timeskip between everybody gasping about Zakuro being kidnapped and the reveal of who kidnapped her. I guess they gasped so hard that they needed to get some sleep and change before hearing the rest.

Preview:

Oh boy! A flashback episode!