天下制覇

Yeeeeah, I don't think this knows what a joke is.

This season is looking pretty dismal at the moment. I'll glance at Vanitas today, but unless it's a major step up from the first two episodes, I doubt I'll post on it. Scarlet Nexus's and Peachboy's third episodes yesterday were both horrible, by the way. At this point, I'm really hoping Mappa's punch-em-up show starting next week isn't godawful, and Fena exists. Sonny Boy isn't totally out of contention either, but that still leaves a lot of empty space in the week.

Impressions:

And this was another episode that was uncomfortably close to weird far right propoganda, which is a bizarre spot to find yourself in as you're complaining about being exploited slave labor. At around 10 minutes into the episode, it was obvious that forming an ant union was going to be the 'gag' of the episode, and then we get almost eight minutes straight of clearly backhanded union/worker strike recruitment, all the while waiting for a punchline that simply literally never comes. Is that supposed to be the joke? That we reach the end of things and then a deus ex machina literally falls onto their heads? It's weak as far as jokes go, but not unusual… except that it's essentially the only joke for easily half the episode.

Where does that leave things then? With a ten minute rant from a criminal using unions as an excuse to sabotage his enemy? The same person who clearly doesn't believe any of it and literally enslaved people under him the previous episode? It's transparently insincere, and that's kind of the big problem. The episode could have worked a little better had the union organizing come from the lizard dude, using the comically paltry things he gets as a slave as demands for the even more enslaved ants while Spikey McBlueHair engages in some other hijinks, with the union bit coming in at the end, but that would require more writing, more jokes, and fewer weird backhanded rants about unions.