天下制覇

Yawn.

Impressions:

Given how weak every day but Sundays and Mondays have been, I'm really trying to give this the benefit of the doubt, but man, this show is not making it easy at all. Between the absolute lack of any kind of story, let alone sensical writing, and the really godawful direction, I don't know that a cast that's not obnoxious is anywhere enough to carry it. Weirdly, I think it actually got slightly better animated than last week, though that may just be an over-animated camera spin on the lazy-ass duel that was 50% the same clash together repeated while the internal narration went into goddamned overdrive about how this was actually super duper ultra serious and getting only more extra double triple dog seriouser despite using even less magic and less thinking as it went on.

The second half especially was just a nonstop parade of random older characters. First teachers, then supposed upper classmen, who are supposedly only a couple years older but all look like 40 year olds, which admittedly, would be par for the course for live action actors. But none of them do anything. The cliffhanger at the end is literally just stumbling on a couple who essentially go "We're bullies who are here to bully freshmen, you stupid freshmen." If the next episode started with another random teacher stepping out and telling everybody to go away, I would not be surprised in the slightest. There still has been only the vaguest whiff of any kind of story or important anything whatsoever happening, and that's largely just an unseen ninja reminding us that there's something up about something. Thin gruel for two damn episodes, JC Staff.