天下制覇

How ‘exciting.’

Impressions:

Nobody can certainly accuse this episode of moving too slowly. I chuckled a little when they just skipped a chunk of exposition by scrolling a wall of text on the side of the screen far too fast to actually read. It’s certainly one way to go about a pseudo-reboot at any rate. Sort of recap your way through all the character intros at a lightning pace, highlighting what’s important for wherever they want to begin in the story. At the same time, I’m not entirely certain it’s necessary. I was going to make a comment about skipping all the character development and such, but then I wondered "what character development?" Then I thought "Oh man. This means only one episode of suffering through Hina Ichigo being obnoxious," and that’s great.

Production wasn’t bad, although it’s hard to get a good grip on what was basically recap. It conveyed the high points of the plot of the first two seasons succinctly (with a few tweaks), I guess, but that’s not something I’m going to be dancing in the streets over. No scene lasted long enough to really have any kind of emotional effect. Art, animation, and music were competent enough, but none all that impressive. The flatter art style and backgrounds leave a little to be desired though. The direction probably could have used a little more work as it was lacking a lot of the gothic and surreal flair of the dreamscapes that the original had, plus the few jokey’ bits just looked ugly and obtrusive instead of meshing well.

I guess we’re mostly just pushing off any real thoughts to next week then. What’s there to really say or feel about recap?

Next Episode:

And then there’s this guy.