天下制覇

This isn't my first time at the soylent buffet.

Actual broadcast for this isn't until tomorrow. A simulcast ended up out there in the wild early. Oops.

Impressions:

Allow me to shatter hearts and souls by cutting to the chase and revealing that this is not going to be the Jump show that breaks through to my shrunken heart and draws me into its endless cavalcade of dramatic thrilling dramaness of dramatism. No, my first instinct is to compare it to porn, and then wonder why that so often seems to be my first instinct with Japanese shows these days. Admittedly, here it's pretty easy because so much of the episode is spent insincerely posturing as we wait and wait and wait to finally get to the main business, only for things to then end in sweat and shame. Wow, everything is so suspicious and weird and creepy. It sure would be suspicious and weird and creepy if the situation were to become suspicious and weird and creepy. *gasp* Things are weird and creepy! Yeah, no kidding. It's as subtle as Mrs. Johnson answering the door in a bathrobe and suggesting that the pizza guy come in so she can check out his hot sausage. And it only took four times the length of Oddworld's introduction sequence to get there. We had to work out our indie cred of innocent large-headed children made to suffer after all.

The 'star' of the episode was the setting, and besides never being as enamored with lore as others seem to be, I simply don't find it all that interesting nor is it executed in anything but with the heaviest of hands. I almost feel like it would work better if it took more of a jump scare approach rather than betting it all on the single reveal. It takes forever to get there without doing much to flesh out the characters in the interim except as mawkish drama-golems, puppets with tiny bodies, but large enough heads to contain all the shock. Too much teasing, not enough payoff, and decidedly less creepy than if it was your standard human-on-human soylent green or even Tales of Symphonia human farms. I gather from what I know of the source that the story takes more of a whodunnit tack with plots upon plots and schemes on schemes, but then what was this episode? Where was that this week? If it was supposed to be a thriller or horror, it needs to be doing a hell of a lot more to manipulate the tempo of things and actually surprise, not engage in a very long, very slow burn, no matter how big they draw the eyes to show off how shocked and horrified characters might be.