天下制覇

Politely applaud if you're content with the world not being destroyed.

Impressions:

Awww, too bad everyone inexplicably saying that the terrible cliffhanger from last week meant a tragic sacrifice was coming. Turns out, believing in the wonder of magic and friendship saved the day yet again! They Macguyver a multi-stage rocket out of brooms in about 3 seconds, fly up to the evil missile of evilness, and thanks to everyone clapping their hands and cheering at the missile inexplicably showing up on their cellphones, there was enough belief power to create the spirit bomb tree and save the day. Also, they all transformed into their super angel forms because why the hell not?

I feel like I'm on drugs writing that, but just another one of the schizophrenic episodes of the show. Better to end on the manic side rather than one of its godawful attempts at weepy sentimentality, certainly, so probably about as best as one could expect at this point. At least they put effort into the animation again, reminding us about what the show could've been had it tried to just stay whimsical and light.

Final Thoughts:

As much as I'd like to say that Akko was the anchor around the show's neck, it's the superficiality of everything that has to take that trophy. She was certainly the main recipient of it; every supposed bit of development or triumph of hers being lipservice before she went right back to being the same selfish immature brat as before, but it covers all the other characters too. We kept having these one-off bits focused on characters but they never actually went anywhere or had any depth to them. That might've been fine if the show wasn't so deadset on lionizing the absolute hell out of Akko and pretending like everything she did was deeply emotional and moving. And it was pretty much always for her belief in the wonder of magic, not actually accomplishing anything or making any kind of sacrifice or anything beyond token effort. Even worse, they tried to pull a twist where everything she believed about being suppose to have it all handed to her was right, and her lackadaisical attitude and halfhearted efforts had nothing to do with it.

It also decided to reinvent itself around the halfway point into a completely different show. Diana all but disappeared and Chariot took over, who, like Akko, could never do no wrong. Hell, they even spat out that she was actually super evil before reversing that into "she trusted her friends too much" to the disappointment of all the people cheering that this made her… something. It was frustrating too, because every now and then, often at the weirdest of moments, it would show some genuine life. When they decided to actually make sequences about characters using magic to do magical stuff, it was fun more often than not. Unfortunately though, it was more concerned with overcomplicating the background stuff while leaving all the characters barely more than skin deep, resulting in a truly obnoxious protagonist supported by a cast that existed almost entirely just to exult her, making it all the more grating.