天下制覇

   

And somehow, they were the somewhat interesting part of the episode.

Impressions:

You know, Japan, I’ve been rather enjoying iZombie, so it’s not unwarranted amounts of exposition or mysteries that necessarily turn me off. In its first half hour, it established the origin story for the protagonist, about a half dozen more characters, their relationships, their personalities, the basic rules for zombies, and set up a mystery, all while being snarkily witty with its dialogue. And what did we get done here? Well, the first 1:40 was just a girl-boy wandering around, looking at a butterfly. Then, after the OP finished, there was another 30 seconds of panning around a school before about 20 seconds of her slowly waking up with a murder weapon in her hands and a dismembered corpse and blood all around her. And what did she do then? Stared. For about another thirty seconds. Not that that stopped the music from kicking into hyper overgear. But she sure as hell didn’t react. To anything at all in the episode. My guess is that she has more ritalin in her than blood. Then, with murder established, and a few characters having introduced themselves before wandering off to not be seen for the rest of the episode, we… spend the entire second half sitting in a dim room chatting. 

The episode because it moves at the speed of molasses with a similar amount of weight and urgency. Boy, doesn’t that sound exciting. Ten minutes listening to someone give a lecture. You’re making me miss the first half with its weird shadow people. Speaking of which, the thing that obviously stands out is how it doesn’t bother to draw characters until they’re ready to slap a nameplate on them. Oh wait, until the socially imbecilic protagonist ‘notices’ them. The obnoxious chirpy teacher, for example, pranced around as a shadow person like everyone else for quite a while, but only gets to be colored in when she directly addresses our socially inept protagonist, who starts sniffing herself in response. But it still beats goddamned listening to a ten minute lecture. Stunning twist about the victim uncovered organically? Nah. Let’s just deliver it the same way we covered introductions and lengthy exposition about how you’re skipping school. Why do you even bother to animate that? Put it on a goddamned book on tape if you just want to hear the guy talk. This isn’t a detective story. This isn’t about solving a crime. This is just dull.