天下制覇

It’s the bird flu.

Impressions:

Very disappointing end to the fight. Hibiki simply collapses after beating up some Noise and before Team Shrimp can do anything at all, they get injected with goo, sing their super songs because the plot/goo says so, making Hibiki create another prismatic typhoon. Where’s the great gouts of blood or massive compensatory space gun barrels that used to come with it, guys? Or every, you know, anything. Granted, they’ve taken Dr. Evil and the Neph and made them a whole lot more than I expected they’d be able to, but the meat’s still all the magical girls doing their "beat up each other for friendship and mutual sacrifice" thing and it continues to dangle just out of reach, most egregiously with Maria, who’s been on the sidelines simply watching everything while getting upset and/or making pained faces for far, far too long. 

They did do a much better job this week of actually selling that Hibiki’s gear is screwing her up, in an almost Jubei-chan like way of her simply starting to set fire to everything around her, but without any of the creepy and bizarre father figure stripping her naked and laying on top of her scenes. And yes, that is indeed a thing that happens. Still something that should probably have been done last week or when she was going bersek though. I also can’t help thinking that Maria would have been a far more appropriate character for this development. It’d help to add a bit more badly needed tragedy and desperation to the antagonist side which is being drowned out by the rampant hypocrisy (oh, irony) and Dr. Evil making crazy faces. The cliffhanger of the shrimps knocking debris onto themselves was just painful and confirms that their greatest enemies are unsecured metal rods and their own stupidity. Go team.