天下制覇

I get the feeling that the writers hate Mizuno.

Impressions:

The funniest part of this episode is that they burned down Mizuno’s home for a single throwaway joke. That’s all. There was no other point to it. They never went anywhere else with it. She didn’t confess to Keigo or go find a new apartment and kidnap Nayu, her home and everything she owned is just gone now. Take THAT, Mizuno. Now you… have no home and no boyfriend. Just a bunch of girls (and one poor genderless manthing) obsessed with underwear. She didn’t even have a sex daydream this episode. It probably comes with suddenly becoming a hobo.

But in any case, it was about what I expected, which is to say, not terribly good. A lot of angst about Nayu leaving, everybody makes up and vows to continue the fight, and then they cop out at the last second. In this case… literally the last second. Nayu shows up again and it’s all but explicity states that she’s going to live alone so she can stay at the school. Also, there may or may not be a cross-dresser joining the underwear club. I’m not really sure why they would call attention to ‘her’ speech pattern otherwise, although it’s hardly that unusual for a female. Yet another character that would have been more entertaining than the core cast. It’s a little disappointing that they didn’t resolve… well… anything (and they burned down Mizuno’s house), but I didn’t really expect much different. Nayu’s already shoved her face into Haruka’s crotch anyway. By typical anime lesbian standards, that means they’ve been married for 20 years.

Final thoughts at the end.

Final Thoughts:

Well, the show is certainly better than its premise, and after that terrifying first episode with the talking nipples, it got quite a bit better. They at least mostly eschewed the fetishism and tried (excessively) to play nice with the underwear. In the end though, I’d be hard pressed to call it much more than average, and that’s if and only if the whole "middle schoolers obsessed with underwear" angle doesn’t bother you. Even beyond that, there are still more than a few moments each episode that would have probably been better just cut entirely. Then again, I think if this had just been about knitting, the show wouldn’t even have infamy.

The biggest weakness of the show is that the core cast simply isn’t very interesting. All three of them are cut from the exact same archetype and listening to Miyako and Haruka complain about their breasts for four episodes is very very tedious. Sadly, there’s really nothing beyond that. Thankfully, the show’s main strength is the secondary set of characters. Komachi, Kiyono, and Mizuno are all much more interesting and kept things amusing. Komachi and Kiyono are both good for jokes, sarcasm, and providing a less angsty (and more sane) group… which is strange to say about a poor kid that ended up in his brother’s banana hammock one episode.

So, it certainly could have been worse, but unless you have a strange obsession with underwear, I wouldn’t say it’s particularly notable either. Just an average show without to it but its twist. At least it does make itself more than that… although that is setting the bar pretty low.