Now I could skip through this entire review singing Pink Floyd…wait, why would I not want to do that? That sounds like an amazing review. I should do that
“Money! It’s a crime!”
Okay, I’ll stop, now you might be wondering, Midnight, how in the hell is Pink Floyd relevant to this episode at all? Because this was Io’s episode and as we all know by this point in the series, he likes money and calculates everything on the value it brings to him. Well let me back peddle to the start of the episode where the student council is eating their fancy lunch and they hear Yumoto being stupid and complain about having trash like that on the campus.
So they need to find a way to break up the now officially a club Earth Defense Club.
How do they intend to break the club up? Well, one of two ways. First off, if they don’t meet at least the average for their test results at mid-terms than their club is going to be dissolved or there is plan B. Plan B involving getting Io to join the student council as their treasurer.
So there is a lot of conflict about the club breaking up between these two plans in this episode. They just BARELY pass the mark on their tests. Thank goodness but then Io walks into the club room and is like “WELP, the student council offered to pay me more so, bye losers.” and leaves.
Oh wait, I forgot about the student destined to turn into a monster this episode. Itsumo Ichiban, you know, I didn’t even have to go look this one up because aside from the fact the episode explains his name. I can translate that much Japanese myself, YES they named him “Always #1.”, this show has all the subtlety of a bull in a shop full of fine china ware.
So he’s bitter that Io is better than him, the student council turns him. He turns into a screw monster, why? Because everyone this episode seemed fond of the term “Has a few screws loose” -shrugs-
So back to the drama of Io leaving the club, the one who seems the most upset about it is Ryuu. Because the show wants us to ship this apparently, I think that was the point of this episode. To make us ship that couple, they fight, Io leaves. The monster shows up, the boys transform and Ryuu gets caught and tickled and for some reason….none of the other boys help him. Cept for Io, who sees what’s going on, transforms and runs in to save his boyfriend.
Yumoto makes some comment about them being stronger together and made even more fangirls ship Ryuu and Io. They pull their final move, beat the monster, have a tiny confrontation with the student council. So now the good and bad guys have met. Well, that takes care of that oh and Io turns down the student councils office and the earth defense club gets to…
WAIT A SECOND, WAIT A GOD DANG SECOND. WHAT’S THE NEWS CLUB DOING THERE? DID THEY WATCH THE ENTIRE BATTLE? DID THEY SEE THE TRANSFORMATIONS? WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THESE GUYS? NO SERIOUSLY, THERE IS SOMETHING UP WITH THE PRESS CLUB AND IT’S KIND OF SKETCHING ME OUT!
-cough-
So what did I think of this episode? It was good, Io got to fight a little by kicking the monster and the entire situation wasn’t handled by Yumoto for once which is nice. It was a lot more reminiscent of a Sailor Moon where another character gets to attack before the main uses their finishing move. I enjoyed a lot of the character interactions especially between Ryuu and Gero. I think their rivalry will prove to be interesting. As for the obvious shipping in this episode, it’s cute. Io and Ryuu has probably been a fairly popular pairing from the start considering they were introduced together and both have one thing that they are fixated on.
I wish I could say we were in for more character focused episodes, but it looks like we’re in for our obligatory beach episode next week -sighs- I wonder how the monster is going to end up on the beach. I’m sure the student council will end up conveniently at the beach along with the boys or maybe it’ll be like that beach episode in early Sailor Moon where it had nothing to do with the main plot and a conflict of it’s own shows up and they deal with it?
Who knows, well anyway. I hope we see more episodes like this one where it shows a little more character drama and moves away from the ‘Yumoto does everything’ trope it had going on. It actually seemed like they were a team this time, rather than….Yumoto, the show.
~Midnight