天下制覇

"That's amazing! We better spend 10% of the episode on that! And then 10% more later!"

Impressions:

I am so sick of this tournament. At least last week's budgetary lapse seems to have resulted in a lot more beams and water this week. It's probably actually the most animated action of the show to date actually, which is really weird because this arc seems to so far only exist as a jobbing excuse for fighting lightning girl later, who literally has no personality or stake in (non) events at all. This really should be about the time they start to try building up to some kind of climax or puting together a final boss, and instead, we've got some random girl who is… maybe somewhat stronger than others. Be still by beating heart. You'd also think that water vs lightning would be a perfect setup for basic physics lessons and using those elements in some way, but nope. Lightning is just magic beams. Water makes water clones. Sometimes freezes things for half a second. Those are the only gimmicks you get. Stretched out for about 13 minutes. And any notion of weight or importance died when they kept getting distracted from the fight by tit groping. "This fight is so totally important to her character and critical and great and aweso… LOOK OVER THERE! TITS!"

And, as the title to this entry probably clued you in, the… architectural problems (it's too early to think of correct words) in constructing and framing the fight were worse than ever, so the extra effort in animation went largely for naught. Even after flurries of action, we typically had to pause for a few minutes to explain it and then recap it and flashback to it while the characters patiently glared for minutes on end. And then repeat that a couple more times. While the first pass already had exposition explaining itself over most of it. Even worse, they started the fight like that, so the bell rang, and then they just stood there for a goddamned tenth of the episode while the camera orbitted them and the peanut gallery tried to hype up how everyone was standing around. Pacing has been left murdered and raped in an alley somewhere.