天下制覇

If you told me those two were the same character, I'd have believed you.

Impressions:

I had some hopes for this episode when three minutes in and it introduced a couple of rival killer robot clones hopping around and casually blowing things up with their magic science swords. Then they leapt back off into the background, vanished, and we traded one girl Short Round for a different one so that we could go through literally the exact same thing as the first. A stereotype shows up and harasses her because he's THE BIG MAN round these here parts and works for the guv'ment, and so he's gonna be the biggest meanest pettiest bully in the world. But because we had to stop for some half-assed fanservice and introducing the other antagonists we're not using, there wasn't enough time to get to the good killer robot showing up to save the day.

The glacial pace of the story is the true anchor here. Your LN adaptation from five years ago would be on the cusp of wrapping up its initial arc after three episodes, if not having done so already. The protagonist is also not helping matters at all. I swear, his only lines of dialog that are played in a loop are "Golly gee," "Huh, that's interesting," "Gee golly," and "Someone should do something." Dump all the lore you want. The setting is not a character and when even the audience insert's reaction is little more than "Huh, okay," I don't know what you're expecting from the audience. He does finally scamper off at the very end of the episode, merely an hour into the show's run time as his first act of agency, and probably the last as well when I assume he inevitably does nothing more than yells petulantly until his magical scientific girlfriend saves him from himself.

Next Episode:

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