天下制覇

Well, at least they weren’t all stupid… most of them at any rate.

Impressions:

While not containing anywhere near the number of reveals that I was hoping for, this was still one of the better episodes of this show to date. They did a very good job with the music this week (finally) and I really hope that they’re not going somewhere stupid with Kawanami too since she remains the most interesting mystery in the show, although from her whole little friendship with Isana, it’s pretty clear that she’ll be riding in to Isana’s rescue whenever they get around to this attack actually happening. Speaking of Isana, I’m liking less and less how they’re handling her. After spending eight episodes in a blissful haze of ignorance about Merry, where’d this sudden surge of jealousy come from? I think they’ve completely forgotten how her character was bubbly and clueless for the first 75% of this show.

The ‘big’ reveals that did end up coming out this week are that Stripey McEvilPants is evil (what a shock!), Kawanami is collecting or doing… something… for what looks like a gun she’s carrying around, and wait for this twist because there’s no way anybody could have seen it coming… dream demons are linked to their host’s hopes and dreams, so killing them does bad things to the host! Wow! Of course, with every character in this show having a brain less complex than your average game of Mouse Trap two turns in, this sends half the cast into an obligatory angst spiral so they can let the evil clown walk away. I’m not seeing the moral grey area here. Either you kill the demon and destroy the person’s dreams, or you leave the demon alone and let it enslave the person AND destroy their dreams. It does kind of remind me of the central conflict in Mushi Uta, which I did thoroughly enjoy, but instead of these demons granting humans super powers to use however they want until one day the bugs suddenly kill them and everybody around them, the demons just eat them as soon as they start. And don’t grant them super powers. And go off to try to destroy more people’s souls. Again, not seeing the moral conflict here. Although I guess that Engi and Merry could try to angst at the demons until they get sick of it and leave.

Preview:

50% looking like they’re about to be raped, 50% about to act on it.