Or, the campaign for imouto welfare rights.
Impression
I’m beginning to see a pattern here. Episode 5 was predominantly plot-focused, whereas last week we got a big helping of tits and asses – depressingly censored as usual. The fanservice disappeared again today, as ‘plot’ gave way to actual plot. I could probably find an upskirt shot of either Kurumi or Yuki if I tried looking for one, but you get what I mean – they’re segregating these things, and maintaining a surprisingly neutral divide between the two. This will be happening next episode as well, which is shamelessly titled ‘Erotic Succubus Out of Control’. Hooray for Maria! It’s a good way of doing things, even if neither the plot nor the ecchi particularly stand out at all.
The showdown this week was slightly disappointing in the sense that it was rather predictable – to this day I’m still imparting a bit of grudging respect over what they did with Takigawa, so I was hoping for something a bit… more. I suppose Takashi didn’t actually end up forgiving Basara contrary to the doctrine of the childhood friend, and only stopped because of how fucking scary Shiba was. I was hoping to see Shiba show off more than he did, but if he’d actually decided to fight the show would be over by now, because presumably everyone would be dead. Like with the fight against Takigawa, it’s not like Basara is genuinely stronger than Takashi – it’s just that he used his knowledge and specific abilities to his advantage to defeat an opponent who otherwise has a higher power level than him. I suppose that sort of thing is a skill too, though. Getting the heroes in their debt was a clever way of prompting them to leave, although I have a suspicion Basara wasn’t actually thinking that far and designed that plan with the intention to defeat Takashi only – but in stopping Byakko from going out of control, Basara and Yuki prevented what would otherwise have been a similar catastrophe to the incident in the hero village five years ago. It still feels like there’s more behind that story to tell, but so far it seems like Basara wiped out a good chunk of the village and killed a lot of people indiscriminately in the blast, which many of the current heroes hold a vendetta against him for. What I don’t get is why they branded him a traitor. I know he couldn’t exactly stay in the village any longer, but they made it sound like he intentionally killed them all and left. Surely it was out of his control?
It also feels like the Kurumi route has been unlocked, somehow. Basara forced the door open and made his way inside. She didn’t seem like she’d ever be interested in him, given how smitten she is for Onee, but there you go. It’s a harem show first and foremost. Surprisingly, she was fairly honourable in not attacking Basara or anyone else after her loss was clear, and Basara saved her instead of letting her plummet to the ground – maybe she’s not as bitchy after all. And of course, Yuki was classic Yuki in refusing to fight Basara at all and taking on Takashi on her own, even though she previously said she’d side with the heroes if the order ever came to kill Mio and Maria. She’ll be back, right? Of course she will! She’s in the OP!
This episode was really…anti-climatic. The episode started off with some really great fighting animation, and then….the fighting turned into one big fart. Since Maria is moreover one of my favorite characters, I’m looking forward to the next episode and any crazy antics she might do (the title better not be misleading!!)
Two things I got from this ep:
1) This is still reaffirming my team YukixBasara ship
2) Honestly….Takashi’s personality is so flat. Only good quality I can take from him is that he has a pair of fine-legs (Basara too….his legs are pretty good looking while in uniform)
Maybe they’ve diverted the budget to all the ecchi scenes? Which we may not even be able to see, ironically enough. The great thing about Maria is that loli laws mean they’re limited to exactly how much nudity they can show, and they thus have to be more creative with her scenes – instead of being lazy and sticking in a bath scene with some boobs.
I want to see Basara in a suit of hero armour instead of his uniform all the time. I imagine it’d look a bit odd on him, though.
In the fanservice department, you missed Kurumi’s chest-armor being destroyed and her left breast as she fell being obscured by an incredibly determined scrap of cloth that seemed practically glued to her nipple, despite every other bit of clothing around it having been distintegrated.
As for this episode… kind of meh for me. It felt like there were several moments in the episode that COULD have been powerful: emotional moments and more ordinary action moments, but they flubbed the execution for all of them, and the episode just ended up being another episode.
You’re right, I wonder how I missed that? There was an obligatory white beam along with it that they didn’t even try to disguise as a ray of light.
They could have injected more emotion into Basara’s clashes with both Takashi and Kurumi – Takashi didn’t say much other than what we already knew, and Kurumi did a 180 far too quickly. I probably got more out of Yuki’s moment of silence after encountering Basara than I did with the other two.