天下制覇

 

So we’re going by playground rules, huh?

Impressions:

I’m well aware of the flak I’ll likely get, but I enjoyed the action here far more than what KLK spat up. Not that there weren’t issues with it, mind you. Major issues. The music was a special brand of awful, there was one spell so bizarre that they had to stop everything to explain what basically boiled down to “I automatically win in about ten minutes” (so what, four episodes from now? *ba-dum tss*) which really should have just been cut regardless because it served no point at all, character motivations for going out of there way to risk their lives are still either nonexistent and need to be explained on the spot (through inner monologue!), feeeeeelings and flashbacks winning the day in the end, and there were some truly moronic attempts at comic relief in the middle of it. What was my point? Oh yeah, covering my ass from meanies. Anyway.

So, uh, don’t take this as me thinking this show has suddenly gotten good, but while the magic was flying, giant magic keys were opening gates, sword-brushes were disappearing into a portal to stab out of another one as just a distraction, so on and so forth, and almost none of it was explained, either through shouting, exposition, or repeated gasps from everyone in a five mile radius, all I could think was “Wow, organic! Direction!” It’s probably just a psychosomatic retaliatory response to KLK’s attempts to use overstimulation to hide repetition and janky writing, but even the nameless side characters who got stabbed didn’t come off as utterly incompetent. Their only duty in life as far as the narrative is concerned is to suck and die in order to raise the stakes and they did a better job of it in about thirty seconds than the Job Squad elsewhere has done with an entire month dedicated to them. 

And yes, Magical Warfare, I find your cliffhanger mystery of “Who could that emo kid behind the curtain be?” extraordinarily compelling. At least maybe that repellant part of the show might finally go somewhere.

Next Episode:

Valentine’s, swimsuits, and bleeding wrist wounds.