天下制覇

Nothing says grand triumph like defeating an inanimate object that was invented on the spot.

Impressions:

Expectations for a satisfactory end were low, and it certainly did not betray them. They shouted for a bit, then hugged, which saved Miku, then they went to the magic core thing and sang at it with all the ghosts of antagonists of seasons past watching with their blessing, which, thanks to the power of friendship, showed Shem-ha that they have enough friendship to face anything, and she happily faded away with a smile, so touched by their friendship. Yeah, that's right. The final challenge was singing at a large rock while the climax was a hug. Remember when these idiots used to fight mutated lizards that ripped arms off, or banana monsters that melted people into goo? Pushing themselves to the breaking point with blood pouring out their eyes to barely eke out a win against a superior foe? I do. 

Final Thoughts:

I'm tempted to copy/paste from last season since the franchise remains entirely in a holding pattern. The biggest problem in this season wasn't half-baked character drama or the like though, because there was just flat out none attempted at all, which is a major problem in and of itself. It's that the antagonists were never once an actual threat. Every encounter with all of them had their asses handed to them. The best they were able to accomplish was messily killing a few extras or bringing back the antagonists from season 3 as one-off jobbers. And even that was done off-screen after showing them being beaten up by the jobbers. Hell, the big final boss didn't even win a single fight except by default when Carol knocked herself out. There was never a credible threat or challenge for the characters to overcome. They might have been stymied for about a picosecond, then said they'd try a little harder and that was it. Time and time again, whether it was some supposedly invicible god-fetus or some supposedly invincible lobster.

And then there's the plot writing, which has always been bad, but certainly feels like it's gotten worse, especially towards the end when characters just start randomly teleporting to the moon and back while ghost AIs take them aside to tell them about the ancient moon illuminati. Then there was that whole thing with Maria knowing some lullaby that showed she was a descendent of moon people or something… but that's where that plot thread both started and ended. Plus the whole civil war 'arc', which is the closest thing that this show had to an arc, except it was spread out across multiple non-consecutive episodes and everyone just went to the mall in between them since even just slightly pitting protagonist against protagonist might have meant one would lose, and that would be too much of a risk upsetting someone.

Season one and probably two remain the only seasons of this franchise that haven't been crap. The production is still there, but without an actual challenge to face, trial to overcome, or any character growth and/or development in the slightest, it's still firmly stuck in the same holding pattern as it's been for the last two seasons. It's well past time for it to either move on, or be ambitious again. Preferably both.