天下制覇

There sure aren’t trying to end on a high note, are they?

Impressions:

What’s funny here is that the dual cliffhangers were both resolved in under 10 minutes. Sora sits Hina down, explains death (badly at that), and then Hina’s over it. Total elapsed time spent on that: 3 minutes. The stuff with the letter just turned out to be one of Japan’s trademarked misunderstandings and nobody ever wanted anybody to go anywhere. At least they got to throw in numerous flashbacks. You know how awesome those are. There was also some nonsense about Raika and yet more misunderstandings which lasted approximately 15 seconds from introduction to resolution, so you know they’re breaking out all the big guns to send the drama to a fever pitch here.

That left the entire second half for "Wow, my sister was great" and yet another tone deaf rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in addition to what can only be described as a wall of cacophony while the entire goddamned cast showed up to watch the disaster unfold. And then a party for him for supposedly working so hard while Hina spent the entire time screaming about cake so they could end the show with the entire cast screaming its title before going into a particularly bizarre montage about moving out and back to the original house. Wasn’t the only substantial arc in this entire misbegotten show about how it was impossible for them to leave his apartment? Fan-bloody-tastic.

Final Thoughts:

This was a great big mess of watching porridge dry. Nothing ever happened, it did it slowly, and it just repeated itself in a cycle. It’s like they thought the premise was enough for the entire series and then blew the rest off. Even if the melodrama was compelling in any way, repeating it ad nauseam, it sure as hell wasn’t anymore. Life’s hard for Yuuta but he’ll do his best for his family. Life’s hard for Sora but she’ll do her best for her family. Life’s hard for Miu but she’ll do her best for her family. Here comes the mean middle-aged woman to ruin things in a two episode arc, but wait, the power of family heals things. Repeat that and whammo. There’s ten goddamned episodes with the premise alone sucking up the remaining two. There’s not enough focus on comedy for it to be funny and the characters sure as hell never grow beyond the cardboard cutout stereotypes that they were in the first 5 minutes of meeting them so there’s little reason to feel even vaguely attached or interested to them either.

It’s unremarkable in any single way and utterly boring. That’s worse than being bad. As least being bad leaves an impression. All this has are the occasional moments when it awkwardly tries to throw in some skin to lure in the desperate through the seemingly endless baths, but you can get far more bath for your buck with Hidamari Sketch any day of the week. Whenever it threatens like something’s about to happen, it resolves it in the next breath, before going right back into the treads of "life’s hard, but gotta do my best for my family." It doesn’t do anything well enough to be recommendable for any reason, although not to sound like a broken record, but it doesn’t do anything at all. What are you supposed to say about a show that practically embodies unambitious rubbish?