天下制覇

I… I can’t take this seriously.

Quick note. If you’re not tired of Mitsudomoe’s time swapping antics yet, its primary broadcast moves to Saturday this week thanks to a one hour special on MBS. Whee.

Impressions:

This episode was completely ridiculous in just about every way. From the Beanie Babies, to Chelsea’s teleporting sword, to Leicester having to do a jigsaw puzzle to save the world while the rest of the party fought smoke dragons. Heck, the ED played at the start and the OP played at the end. We’re in full on crazyville here. And when did Garnet become useful in a fight? How long has she been shooting flames? And she’s hooking up with Nick? What else have you been keeping from me, AIC?

The main issue is that the whole episode feels a bit like they tried to cram two or three episode’s worth into one. It doesn’t turn out as horrible as other shows because there’s nothing but fluff to the show anyway so there’s not a whole lot of drama or plot that they ruined by doing that, but you can’t really build a proper climax when the show is hurtlng off the rails either. I really would have preferred it if they had built up to last week’s episode a bit more and made that the big finale instead of… well… someone named after cheese doing a jigsaw puzzle to save the world… and a woman on a rocking chair with skies attached to it.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Final Thoughts:

I expected little to nothing from this show, and instead got a saccharinely sweet little RPG adventure with a a cast dedicated to just having fun and messing around. It’s certainly not for everybody, but it’s still a very good way to just idle away some time. There was the rather unfortunate sexual stuff crammed in for absolutely no reason most episodes that I could have done without, but for the most part, AIC knew exactly what it was doing with the show and succeeded at that. However, I will admit that its biggest strength is probably that it does so much right that other shows this season have completely cocked up.  

As far as production goes, it was rarely impressive, but never poor. They loved to cut into the stock ED time to give more actual show too, something that I always appreciate, especially with certain flashback and stills infested shows that are currently praised for how well they’re ‘animated.’ The cast also does a good job in keeping it fun. Everybody’s so cheerful and there’s only really one episode of angsting about for the entire run. No people whining, training, feeling sorry for themselves, etc. It makes everything so much easier to stomach. Sure, there could have been more Tortillas, but there could always be more Tortillas.

All in all, I’d hardly call it a great show, but it aspires to be low impact and silly and it succeeds at that admirably. Knowing your niche and slotting yourself into it well should be considered a virtue. The ending could have used a little work, but doing jigsaw puzzles while feeling the feelings of all your friends as beanie babies overrun the town more or less fits into the show’s modus operandi anyway. If you want to watch a nice little fluffy RPG and don’t mind some tooth rot, this is a fine way to pass a couple afternoons. If you’re looking for something with substance though, steer far far away.