天下制覇

"Oh right, we’re paying Kikuko Inoue, better use her."

Impressions:

A pretty good episode, but part 3 was really cheap and barely had time to introduce the joke before it ended and that leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. If it was short just because the other parts ran long, fine, but with the 2 minutes still blown at the start and end of every episode and them reusing almost a full minute from the previous episode… well… color me displeased.

Part 1 was age (in)appropriate behavior and growing up in general. Majiru kind of deserved what he got for reaching at Chiri’s chest, even if there’s not much there. Leave it to her to not forgive a child. I’d have thought they’d bring the married Manami into it sooner, but they did finally pull her in at the end and gave her speaking parts in all three segments. Even Chie finally got to make a rare public appearance for the first time this season I think. What ever happened to the forbidden love between her and Komori? I miss that.

The beginning and end of part 2 had Oura Kanako (aka "ooraka na ko", "big-hearted person," although in her case it’s because she doesn’t pay attention to anything, like the classroom covered in blood or her skirt not fastened), but she didn’t have anything to do with the actual content, which was about social/relationship networks. It all ended in a violent bloody disaster at Chiri’s hands… as do most things. Watching Itoshiki run around, full of hope carrying a "Love and Peace" balloon is a particularly surreal thing to see usually reserved as a flashback to particularly violent hallucinogenic drugs.

Part 3 didn’t start well. They recycled about a minute from the previous episode to lead into Manami’s own take on the "slew life." By the time they finished that, there were about 200 seconds left to do something new, so they had Chiri putting stickers of the creators on various things, including people (parents). Or in Kafuka’s belief, their true creators were the weird ‘gods’ of Japan. That part could have had potential… if it had lasted longer than three minutes. Bloody hell, Shaft. Maybe they’ll actually come back and cover it for real next week.