天下制覇

Moving forward by going backwards.

Impressions:

It's a bold move to try to make the finale all about bringing back the initial premise of the show. Or to be more exact, just one tiny aspect of the premise. The other stuff like Not-Kirito being an assassin, the world being overrun by monsters, etc etc? Nah, we can leave that behind. It's time to play dressup and yell about her mother being a slut. Brilliant. Didn't even save up the budget to go out with a bang. I still have a fond memory of when Grenadier did that. Absolute garbage animation for the first eleven episodes, then about 45 seconds of a couple great gun-kata sequences out of nowhere, forever tricking thousands of people into watching that and then getting trapped in a goofy Trigun boob knockoff.

*ahem* If the above paragraph seems meandering, it's because the episode was too. Last week's was scattershot enough, but this week's managed to be even more random, dropping the girl squad into a bunch of old people yelling at her about her mother, who I'll remind you is completely nonexistent in every way. Then they fought… I don't even know who. Some Guy™, who went down to not much more than a stern look. Couldn't she have fought her father at least? Beat him down and say "I don't need your approval anymore, old man. I'm my own woman now with a brand new sugar daddy/boyfriend whose approval I desperately crave." No? She's going to be bursting into tears because he said "I acknowledge that you exist now"? Fantastic. Great way to end things. A++. Bring on the new season.

…I'm being told (by my already finished spreadsheet) that the new season is nearly a quarter shows about having an animal-girl slave daughter wife. God damn it.

Final Thoughts:

I doubt there are many rabid fans of the show, so let's keep this short. Production is low end to crap. It never develops any of the stronger parts of its premise/introductory episode(s), and instead doubles down on the worst parts. Merida could've grown, but instead just shifted her hang-ups from one character to another, and it celebrated them instead of letting her grow into a real character. Kufa wasn't the worst, especially given his competition among other slave-wife-daughter protagonists of late, but he didn't have any arcs or growth either. Twelve episodes and the only character I would say that had any growth was that one bitchy drill-hair girl.