天下制覇

JESUS SMASH!

Impressions:

I was wondering how they were going to try to surpass Nobunaga as a villain and apparently they’re going the Incredible Hulk/Jesus route. Hideyoshi is at least the size of Tadakatsu, if not much larger, and spends much of his screen time bathed in light from the heavens. The only other antagonist thus far is Hanbei, who is just trading one effeminate froof for another. Mitsuhide was crazy as hell too, which was always amusing. It’s certainly a pretty big step down from the Demon King sitting on a throne of skulls sipping wine from… another skull. The second half of the episode also dragged in the usual Basara way. I would have preferred an ED to listening to the talking heads go on about how influential and dangerous the previously unmentioned and unseen Hulk-Jesus really is.

The craziness was also toned down a lot compared to the first episode of the previous series. Masamune still shouted random crap in English, there were big explosions, etc, but none of them flying around or going really nuts. It feels quite repackaged, particularly the art styles. That bleeding into the rougher design when the auras are flaring and people shouting was completely gone from this episode, although it does look like it’ll make something of a comeback next week. Part of that may also have been whatever they’re trying to do with Yukimura and Masamune by having Yukimura decisively lose in their opening fight, but it’s hard to really be sure. It definitely didn’t have those same out of control overtures as before though.

It was still a solid first episode, but I do think that it’s a very noticaeble step down from the opening episode of the first season and needs to regain some of that berserk energy that made it fun to watch in between the dull talking heads.

Preview:

Hanbei vs Masamune’s team and Kasuga orgasms, again.