天下制覇

Way to keep your eyes open, Chris.

Impressions:

I wouldn't dare think of saying that this was as godawful filler as Fate's episode earlier, but make no mistake, it was another episode that existed not to advance anything. Maybe it would be more tolerable if there was literally any kind of actual character focus going on at all, but we've sludgified everyone into just Team Good and Team Bad. Nobody has any dynamic or chemistry with anybody, internally to their teams or externally, and everyone is completely interchangeable and/or disposable. What little focus on characters that exists is for nonsense like flashbacks to the day Hibiki and Miki met, for god only knows what reason. And the only even vaguely interesting ones on the baddies are the wizard robot girl who spent the entire time in the bath, and/or her typically naked pimp, both of whom have been sitting on the sidelines basically the entire show. Hell, I'm not even sure that the good guys even know the robo-girl exists at all.

Last season was awful with repeating the same episode over and over again, just putting a different character in to get their power up, but this season seems to have learned all the wrong lessons. It's doing the same thing, but without the character focus, without killing an antagonist each week, and without the new costumes. And that's to say nothing of the first season's blood explosions, or even the second season's temporary dismembering. How many more episodes of Team Good sparring without conclusion against Team Evil before someone actually strikes a blow that matters? Do we still have 2-3 more giant snake monsters to go before that happens?