天下制覇

In a way, I’m surprised that it took 8 episodes to get to a clown nightmare.

Impressions:

Maaan, I feel like there’s more to talk about in the 30 second preview for next week than there is for the entire rest of this episode. A significant chunk of it was consumed by a rather out-of-character bit of moping from Isana about her future while clearly-not-evil-at-all Stripy McPants looms menacingly around her. They’re clearly setting her up to be the damsel in distress for whatever ending arc they’re going to toss out, but they’re still handling it with slightly less grace and subtlety than a herd of rollerblading elephants in Hot Topic.

Engi and Yui are growing on me though and I wish they had played a bigger part in the show. They provide a much needed drive and focus… a quest as it were… which gives them direction which Yumeji and Merry lack. The scene about Engi’s sister in the middle there was excellently directed. It’s a shame the rest of the show can’t be like that. Unfortunately, there was pretty much nothing else going on. Engi buried the hatchet with Yumeji and apologized for hurting him and then a clown attacked them, and they dragged that out for nearly five minutes just to end on the ‘cliffhanger’ that they were going to fight… clowns. Yeah, sure, clowns can be scary but give me a break here. Of course, like I said, there’s the preview which seems to hint at finally revealing every single thing they’ve been dancing around for awhile. I look forward to my scant hopes to be squashed when next week actually turns out to be a beach episode. Yes. Another.

Preview:

Will the antagonist please stand up?