天下制覇

Really? Dropping some donuts is the ultimate attack? Really?

Impressions:

It had done none of the legwork needed to make a good finale, so there wasn't much to expect here, nor did it deliver it. Not even a Final Fantasy X-ish "This is my story," which was about the best I was hoping for. No, it turns out that he had the inner spirit of Grimm inside him, and wanting to keep his promise to Reina was just that important. It was certainly more important than the art integrity, because turning into Grimm did a goddamned number on the art quality. You didn't even have to draw a background for most of this episode, artists. What are you spending all your effort on then? Maybe the writers did the art this week, and the artists were in charge of writing Jabberwock's dialogue. It would explain a lot.

Anyway, after hitting the pause button yet again in the standard separation, they all got back together, spouted their platitudes, and then just hit each other. You'd think they'd at the very least touch on Through the Looking Glass's themes of growing up and maturation, but eh. Let's just one-shot the Jabberwock. A brief back and forth between Loki and X where they each powered up to the level of storyteller, and then it's off to rewrite the next world. The real mystery is how Loki got to keep his own voice when he transformed, but nobody else does. Such is the awe-inspiring power of evil.

Final Thoughts:

Don't bother. I'll stick to my guns that the first episode was surprisingly decent, but it abandoned everything that made it so. Animation went from passable to atrocious. Fairy tales went from having twists to any number of issues from flat out just told straight to completely misinterpreting them to not a fairy tale at all, and it made only the most superficial attempts to have some kind of overarching plot, which it couldn't even stick with or commit to long enough to make sense. It certainly could've grappled with the dramatic question of these demigods dropping in to meddle with things and make them right, even if it's worse for all involved, and given how many fairy tales end with body counts in the dozens or the protagonists cast away and eaten by bears or turned to sea foam, it wouldn't have been hard. It only half-assedly presented that idea that maybe free will is better and didn't care to follow through on it. Good lord, all Curly ever did even in the final battle was pop up to proselytize before vanishing back into the ether. Could've even just copied Final Fantasy X's story, except with fairy tale themed dungeons, and probably would've turned out relatively acceptable.

It lacked any such ambitions though, or any ambition at all, and thus, is destined to quickly be relegated to the dust bin of history, where it deserves to be. Onward to the next season.