天下制覇

   

Never go full Okada.

Impressions:

Another nonsensical, ridiculously melodramatic episode that was about 25% exposition, 25% overblown melodrama, and 50% padding. I’m torn between what was stupider, the shocking revelation that their guardians won’t let them kill themselves, you know, like anybody with a conscience wouldn’t, or the screaming, bawling mess that Tall Blonde turned into when she learned that Small Blonde decided she wanted to be a singer and her dream was cruelly taken away from her. A dream that a 15 year old girl had for what… a day? And before that showed little to no talent for at all? I’ve had songs stuck in my head for longer than that, and while I was crushed when it dawned on me that I couldn’t be Pat Benatar, I didn’t transform into my magical girl form and go out seeking vengeance against the world until I collapsed in a broken wreck. I just cut my hair different and entered into an ill-conceived commercial partnership with Jell-O for a while.

And nary is there a trace of “We paid this cost to save the world and all our lives.” That continues to be entirely lip service. My kingdom for one of them to just say “You know what would have happened if you didn’t do this? You and everyone you know would be dead. You know what’s worse than being slightly disabled? Being dead.” Oh, they have to do it, obviously. The writers say so. But the characters aren’t going to practice or prepare to make sure they don’t need to make a sacrifice like that again. Only the one that feels inadequate should spend an afternoon swinging a sword around, and even that was shown to be a ‘bad thing’ she shouldn’t be doing. It’s not that important after all. With no actual weight to the cause, or even the slightest trace of awareness from the characters about it, it’s just a cruel, unfair world beating down on those poor helpless girls who just have to sit there and take it, too powerless and apathetic to do anything but suffer. Oh wait, they spout empty platitudes about being friends. You know what makes a terrible antagonist? Existential angst. I’d call it emotional torture porn, but porn is usually well written enough to have a climax. It’s more like a lazy emotional torture handjob that’s now painfully chaffing everything.