天下制覇

Uh, no.

Impressions:

Wow, were those some ugly CG planes. The art in general seemed very off this week. I think it was because everything was a lot more brightly lit and colored than usual which made the rough line ‘shading’ (if you can even call it that) stand out all the more, especially on scenes where the lines seemed to just be drawn in completely random directions. Or maybe it was just because 95% of the episode was a swarthy man rambling to Fujiko so I was eager to concetrate on anything but him. But don’t worry. In the final minute of the show, someone on the staff realized "Oh crap, guys. We whipped her, but we forgot to show any nipples this week!" At which point they decided to have the closing scene be Fujiko wandering around a beach topless.

*ahem* In any case, this was back to being a fairly dull episode though and possibly the weakest of the bunch. I’ll take an exciting but godawfully written episode like last week’s over this dull drek any time. Fujiko remains little more than an earpiece for other characters to talk to, but instead of being one of the long running main characters doing the talking, it’s Random Swarthy Guy. The whole episode was basically just one long monologue from him. Even in the middle of a hijacking, he was rambling on about his dreams and honor and yawn. Fujiko’s entire role was to carry the rope cutters and ask such thoughtful quests as "Really?" and "Oh?" and her most insightful question all season, "Really?" And then there’s Goemon shoe-horned in. He showed up at the start for about 45 seconds and then vanished for the next 14 or so before popping up at the end to save the day as part of Fujiko’s plan… which they didn’t even have the good graces to leave as a surprise since the audience was told about it before the hijacking even started. Well, at least they didn’t ruin any tension or excitement in the episode because Random Swarthy Guy was doing a damn fine job of that on his own.