天下制覇

The question is less interesing when seven is apparently enough.

Impressions:

Maaaan, this show finally almost threatened to finally get all its ducks in a row, but just couldn’t quite get there. The awful music was finally well placed towards the end of the episode, only to be let down by obvious padding and terrible visual direction. I openly admit that I never like it when shows change visual styles for different kinds of scenes. Consistency is a virtue, and fudging up the art because you need more keyframes just makes the budget woes very very obvious. If they want it to be a stylistic choice, it needs to be used consistently, not whenever they need a few more keyframes. It was still the best action Merry’s had since episode one though, so I am going to count it as a step in the right direction. They spend half the episode in the dream world fighting a potentially interesting antagonist only to have the fight suddenly cut off so it can literally just spew out about half a dozen accusations at Merry… and since this is anime, all characters immediately accept them as true and stand around shocked letting it pin her to a rock. They’re not even interesting. When was the last time anybody with amnesia ended up being some normal well-adjusted person who used to breed pomeranians instead of AGNOX, RAPER OF CHILDREN, DESTROYER OF ALL THINGS?

*ahem* Then Yumeji finally decides to man up, which involves standing there like a blob thinking about how he wants to man up before running over and throwing himself in front of Engi’s sword. For starters, that is one of the stupidest anime cliches in existence. It makes no sense from a practical angle or from a physics angle. How about tackling them instead, or going for the weapon? I bet that would take less time and be more effective than striking a pose. If stepping in between them made the slash barely hit you, then it was going to miss anyway. Come to think of it, there were a bunch of swords stabbed into the rock all around her. One would think that would hinder attempts to move nearby her or slash at her. Come to think of it even more, she’s not even actually pinned to the rock at all. Nor are the swords close enough to stop her from doing anything except jumping jacks. Sigh. I was happier when I was ignorant.

Preview:

Because what this show needs is Yumeji being a vegetable and more angst.