天下制覇

Warum!

Impressions:

I probably would have liked this episode a bit more if it hadn’t been preceded by an excellent one. Unfortunately, Shaft decided to reuse an almost identical thematic scene for Kuze losing his mind and asking "why why why why why!?" "warum warum warum warum!?" at Mizuki as they did for Yuko in the previous episode. The music was also all over the place for the first five minutes and just felt a few decibels too loud and a bit too jarring. The OP also changed slightly again. The people are back and everything’s gone back to black and white with eyes and lips a little more jarringly colored.

Not a whole ton really happened this episode to advance either story. Kuze flipped out at Mizuki then decided that he wanted to live after having a seizure and licking pills up off the ground from among the broken glass, and Yuko gave Yuu a ceremonial knife to ‘deal with’ Akira, but Yuu was too much of a pussy and Akira kicked the crap out of him. I did like the sepia-toned animation style they used for that scene, but it was still pathetic to watch. Akira’s clearly three circles past the loony bin and practically stabbing himself in the gut while ranting like a madman while Yuu stood there like a deer in headlights. I’m not even certain he had more than four or five lines in the past segments for this episode after the opening 2 minutes. I’m not even certain I want stabbing in this show. Yuu’s the closest thing we’ve got to an everyman, or even someone relatively normal and balanced, and now he’s carrying something that looks like it was meant to sacrifice virgins for Asgorth while lurking in his teacher’s yard.