天下制覇

No, I am Spartacus!

Impressions:

Well, at least the show has finally been put out of its misery, even if this episode was about 3 minutes of Kyouka ranting and 15 minutes of "family is important" speeches. Good lord was that awful. First Ouka gave one in a complete retcon of the cliffhanger at the end of the previous episode, then Yuka hopped on board and the rest of the family gave their "I’m the evilest and therefore true Child of Enka" speech before Kyouka popped out in control of the water. A brief interlude to try to force a competition over the King later, Oasis joined the fray, bitching out them all over love, and then once she flooded the King, Gekka teleported them into space for yet some more talk about mushy feelings before sending the irritation across the galaxy. But wait, that’s not all. Kyouka tried to sneak off, only to get yet another "we’re your important family" speech to end it. Good lord. Give it a rest.

So the nonsensical ‘plot’ comes to an end and this is how the show finishes up. Whoopie doo. I’d have been more a fan if somebody (anybody) had destroyed the Earth and then Gekka deus ex machinaed it back into existence because then I’d have at least had the satisfaction that Kyouka would have been dead for a brief time. Ugh. I don’t even want to talk about this atrocity any more. Let’s just move on to the wrapup.

Final thoughts at the botto.

Final Thoughts:

If there was one thing to remove from the show to improve everything, it would be Kyouka, and that’s really the biggest failing with the show. Never mind the totally under-used Raichou, the plethora of throwaway characters, the nonsensical plots, or the family speeches… Kyouka was an assault on the brain and ears that was getting old by the end of the first episode and just kept on hammering away at my cerebellum through the show’s entire run. Other characters ended up following this trend, and even above and beyond the very odd speech patterns that most used, that really stretched the limits of my Japanese (and often went past them), especially when the plot got especially incomprehensible.

The humor did have its moments, but they were often quickly soon drowned out by Kyouka’s ranting, and the humor all but disappeared by the end of the show. At the start, when the plans were to create wild and out of control schemes in order to accomplish… whatever… it was enjoyable and you only had to suffer through a minute or two of pithy "family is important" nonsense every episode. As the show went on though, things gradually drifted away from crazy characters in crazy scenarios to crazy scenarios with angsty characters. I’m still not even certain that I really understand what the point of that Vitamin C episode and that was one of the better ones towards the end.

So, like many comedies, this is another show that pretty much forgot about being funny and instead of going with its strengths, drifted further and further into the field of ‘serious business,’ despite being woefully unqualified for that. It was fun at the start, and even halfway through, there were still episodes more enjoyable than irritating, but the outright and total collapse for the past month makes it really hard to say too much positive here. I’ll remember it as "that show with the annoying catgirl that gave me a headache," which isn’t quite the ideal lasting impression you want to give to your audience.