天下制覇

You’re letting down the side, Kubo.

Impressions:

Meh. Poor followup to one of the few decent episode this season and not a particularly strong way to end the show. The whole Himeji thing was very tacked on at the end with pretty much nothing leading up to it at all. It felt like it was just there to pretend like there was some kind of finality to the show, despite the fact that Himeji hasn’t really done anything of note the whole time. Plus it was preceded by not one but two interrupted love confessions earlier in the episode… so bleh. Kubo was also not selling his stalker side at all here. Shimizu was in all-out ‘secret weapon’ berserker mode, but he was just tagging along, almost seemingly uninterested in searching out his man. Most confusingly though, they never showed Shouko’s summon in Halloween mode at all. That’s just weird. How do you just pass up such an obvious either fanservice pan or gag like that?

Anyway, space filling and the usual love interruptus for the first half before Himeji got herself too worked up over Yoshii and was DQed. Then they lured the OVA antagonists out of one zone and into a more favorable one so they could beat them up. As far as this show goes for its summon battles, that’s a pretty weak strategy. I was hoping for some kind of extra twist, but… nada. I also just realized that with this Halloween bit, they only actually had a single real summon battle this entire season and completely abandoned the entire tests portion of the title. I guess that’s just another demonstration of how this season sort of lost its focus and its way.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Final Thoughts:

This was extremely disappointing after the first season. It suffered in almost every single way, but the writing is what stood out the most. Just thinking about that bottle flashback episode with Yuuji and Shouko annoys me, but with all the wasted time, recycled jokes, and status quo resets, particularly after two weeks of semingly major Minami developments washed away to nothing in moments… ugh. At least the show did end strongly, but that doesn’t make up for only 2-3 episodes being good through the rest of its run.

Everything else is more or less the same, disappointingly so at times since there weren’t any new characters or developments introduced that weren’t immediately wiped away and some of the more amusing characters barely made an appearance at all. Kubo, Hazuki, and Ironman were conspicuously absent for almost the entire season’s run. It was still an okay show, and did display some of that same wit, energy, and fun that the first season did at times, but the writing seriously let down the side here very badly, both by going nowhere for long stretches, and then when it seemed to, resetting things soon thereafter. Most, if not all, of this season is little more than an excuse to pad out time.

If you were a fan of the first season, then I think it’s still worth watching, just be very aware that at least half the charm and plot (what little there was) is gone with a heaping helping of zilch added in its place.