天下制覇

No, I haven’t gotten a chance to play it yet. Yes, I plan to.

The episode this week was delayed an hour and a half due to baseball which pushed it a little too close to when I have to leave for class. At least thanks to Crunchyroll’s 2 hour delay on its ‘simulcast’ they didn’t actually beat the broadcast. Barely. Anyway, that pushed it too close to class for my usual alacritous coverage.

Impressions:

This whole episode seems like a throwback to almost half a decade ago, if not more. At what point was "I’m awesome, but someone doesn’t care/know about me" not a tired cliche? 1935? Granted, they’re typically either rich girls or genius lolis, but good lord, there is absolutely nothing new about this scenario at all. Keima’s comments about this being out of whack are insincere at best. Plus, given the pop idolfication of VAs in recent years and how much cross-over there is between the two industries of idols and VN VAs, not to mention how much marketing there is over "OMIGAWD, Look who’s voicing this game!," Keima’s attitude feels insanely artificial and I wish they went a much different direction with his attitude. Many of these immortal girls of his are voiced by pop idols and pop idol wannabes. It’s like they took the idol cliches of the early 90s and are trying to directly dump them into the VN world of 2007.

Thankfully, aside from the nonsensical mishmash of the scenario, they are doing a little bit better job with the presentation here than the previous arcs. Probably because the music is less irritating and obtrusive. Kanon herself is a bit more interesting than the other girls too. Of course, I can only be so thrilled with any episode where they take a few minutes to have a time out montage that serves no purpose whatsoever except to shill CDs. The animation this week was also a little janky in places. Other than the twist at the end of her vanishing when Keima ignores her, the main thing that Kanon does bring to the table is violence. I like violence. Physical comedy will always trump Keima yelling. The kitty tasers are only slightly less lame than Ookami’s electrified boxing gloves though.