Oh, George…

Impressions:

Now this is more like it. Not a particularly surprising episode, but a very nice way to wrap certain things up and a return to the comedy which made this show so much fun in the first place. I absolutely adored Gab and Ag’s Moemobile, complete with Moe license plate and some random woman that I probably should recognize drawn on the hood. Playing Thus Spake Zarathustra while they were buying doujin supplies for Eitarou was just icing on that particular cake. And then there’s George… George, George, George… what are we going to do with you? The sexy reindeer outfit was bad enough, but thinking about him as the next Hapxier is frightening. Poor boy doesn’t handle rejection well.

I’m glad they ended the show like this instead of the ultra serious episodes though. At least this way, we leave with a pleasant impression instead of a complete turn into the pretty mediocre drama. I still wish they had never tried to pull that, but it’s easy enough to just pretend like that one episode never really existed. Sure, it provided some answers to the plot of the show, but if you’re watching this for the deep and enthralling plot, then… well… you confuse me. I could have used a bit more Miyabi and Eneus in a finale, but hell… I’d support a Miyabi and Eneus spinoff.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Brief Summary:

While out window shopping, Takuto sees an action figure that his dad gave him a long time ago. All the girls decide that it’s the perfect Christmas present, but the owner of the shop is whose-her-face-the-loli-demon and she’ll only trade it for some other figure. Luckily, Futaba’s got that figure, and she’s willing to give it to them if they help her family’s store sell cakes. She dresses them up as sexy reindeer or santas and it’s off to work in their usual chaotic fashion. Meanwhile, George is praying the Jesus for guidance, and an angel comes to him. Takuto also receives a visit from an angel, but Miyabi is there to drag him into service helping them finish Eitarou’s doujin.

Back at the cake shop, the violence heats up. George is also somehow dressed up as a sexy reindeer and selling cakes. Meanwhile, Stein gets accosted by some pervert trying to sell him pictures of the girls from the dressing room. He slaps them out of the guy’s hand as being shameful, but goes into Zawazawa mode over the normal pictures of them in reindeer antlers. Trincia and Sagami wander past as the fight heats up and he decides to punish them a bit. Back at Eitarou’s, Miyabi runs out of ink, and Eineus reports that they’re low on other supplies. Luckily, Ag and Gab are there and see the noble endevor and offer to go buy more. So they pop into their ultra moemobile and hit up the print shops.

The time to give the figure as payment has come, but they immediately all get into a fight over it and stampede George when it falls into his hands. They eventually make it back to the toy shop only to find it ransacked. The espers were behind the thief, so they chase them down and try to chariot smack them off the road. Portal boy goes to take the girls out, but Ag and Gab drive past in a hurry, taking him out out of sheer good luck. Sensing trouble, the espers switch their car into super mode, which is apparently a giant Metallis head which throws the other cars out of its way. Falce counters by bringing all the stolen toys to life and the espers are defeated by the swarm of action figures. Unfortunately, the toys already know who they were supposed to be given to, and the girls sadly comply. The children thank ‘Santa’ and her reindeer as they fly into the night.

Dejected, the girls walk home, but run into the real Santa Claus who has a present for them. They happily give it to Takuto, and not only is it the toy he wanted, it’s the exact one that his father gave him. He’s in tears and thanks all the girls with a big hug. Outside, Eitarou talks to Santa/the school principal about the holiday school party. Eitarou says that he’s already got everything he needs, wryly holding up his completed doujin.

At the party, the entire school is transported into another dimension onto a beautiful sky ship. The usual antics start, and we get a montage of all the characters. Of particular note is that George is now Hapxier’s apprentice and dressing like him. Ew. Tanarot and Suzuka’s fight ends up knocking off a huge stone ball which crushes the entire school, but that’s okay… Wasshoi!

Final Thoughts:

Aside from a couple hiccups, this was easily one of the most entertaining comedies of the year for me. The rocket segment and episode 11 notwithstanding, almost every episode featured a lot of subversions on the usual jokes while simultaneously quickly jumping from one joke to the next without drawing the out to the point where they stop being funny. I’m sure a lot of people will be turned off just by the fact that it contains quite a few of the more otaku-centric themes, but they’re presented so differently from the norm that even while it really is pandering, it doesn’t feel like it. Instead of a cloying "oho, look what fetish we’re appealing to now," approach, the fetishists are running the show and screaming that you will adore them or else. It’s a big different from shows with similar themes (Comic Party and Genshiken come to mind) because it’s not presented like some kind of forbidden fruit only loved by the obsessive, but as the pinnacle of human evolution, and it’s that ridiculousness that sets the presentation apart.

Aside from the relatively brain melting OP (which did grow on me more than I thought it would), I was also rather surprised by the show’s excellent use of music throughout. Hapxier’s somewhat dissonant theme was absolutely perfect for him, pretty much every insert song was very well performed and didn’t feel shoehorned into the episodes at all, and they pulled in a lot of classical music to avoid overuse of the standard show BGM. I would have to say that I think some of the voices could have used a little more polish. Falce in particular tended to grate on me quite a bit, though Suzuka seemed to have a fair number of pretty poorly delivered lines as well. Eitarou’s rants were an absolute delight to listen to though, and I wouldn’t change him for the world. The rest of the production values were excellent across the board. Well animated, consistently drawn, and an army of clay figures to censor anything and everything.

So, once again, just like with Penguin Girl, I was betrayed by my own expectations, and the ‘otaku pandering’ comedy ended up being one of my favorite shows for the season. It’s witty, it’s funny, it’s unpredictable, and for all the crying about excessive fanservice people make, there’s always an angel (and his apprentice!) around the corner to show that the joke’s the thing. I do know that many many people never even gave this a shot, or immediately tuned out after seeing the chintastic art design and rampant fetishism, but for the rest of us, this was an excellent comedy and I really wish that more shows tried to subvert the usual fanservice tropes like this instead of using them as fanbait.

Oh good, they changed the spelling… again.

Impressions:

Bleh. Well, not quite the episode I expected, but still pretty much nothing about why I like this show. Why must comedy shows suddenly crank up the angst and nonsense in the eleventh hour? Play to your strengths, dammit. 

Anyway, Tanarot is apparently a-okay after her tree-stabbing, aside from an itchy bandage, but Takuto turns out to be the real problem since he’s the one with the power to disrupt the divine balance or whatever and because he went berserk, he’s now sealed up by all the powerful people in a world of his own creation devoid of all the magic and fun of his life except for Futaba (who is probably more fun than he deserves) and a kind of hybridized but sickly Suzuho who has lines ripped straight from a bad porn game. Blah blah blah angsty angsty angsty and no humor whatsoever. Takuto’s harem gives up on him partway through the rescue attempt once they learn what’s actually going on, except for Tanarot, who hops right onto the magical whatsit and is transformed into her component bits, only to become Takuto’s dream and drives him to recreate her with science thus breaking the magical world apart.

Eitarou gets a few points for going up against Ag and Gab on his own, not to mention the line "I’m not just a human, I’m Eitarou Sakuma!" before his own limit break or whatever that was. The end of that encounter wasn’t actually shown, though I am rather disappointed that he didn’t drag Miyabi and Sync along on the rescue mission. Any episode without Miyabi and Sync is a sad episode indeed. There’s also the question of what exactly happened to the espers after Takuto went berserk. I didn’t mind them at all, especially when equipped with the magical Tsundere Bunny Ears.

One more episode to go, and since they skipped the OP and the episode continued through half of the ED this week, I’ll assume that they’re back to random silliness, which is where they should have been all along to begin with.

That’s why we won’t lose!

Impressions:

Absolutely awesome episode on all fronts. We had comedy. We had violence. We had espers. We had tsunderizing bunny ears. We had Tanarot piercing drama. We had roaming fog clouds. We had PERFECT Meganeus. We had EXTREME ping pong. We had a manly pose off between Hapx and one of the psychics. The only thing this episode was lacking was that it didn’t have enough Eitarou or Miyabi. Although we did get super 1970s Eitarou and I’m pretty sure that those are MegaTen shadows that the secondary psychic dude summoned, not that I’m looking forward to P4 in a few days or anything… even though I probably won’t pick it up until after Christmas.

Surprisingly enough though, there really wasn’t much of a plot here. The first half had a lot of bonding between Takuto’s group and then the second half was one long action scene of the entire cast vs the psychics in various ways. They get points for being competent and even being able to distract Hapxier with a manly pose-off. I don’t think they’d stand a chance against Eitarou’s group though. Takuto got some street cred for finally effectively using some battle magic. Ag and Gab were both surprisingly entertaining this episode as well. For that matter, Gabriel is a lot more stacked than I assumed she was. Important to note… I know.

*sigh* Only two episodes left.

Brief Summary:

Some seemingly mages/thieves cross paths with the vacationing Takuto et all and in the ensuing melee, end up capturing them in a spherical prison. The entire academy launched a counter attack, all in their own special ways. Stein had the best attack, managing to get the tsunderizing bunny ears onto the head enemy, but still getting blasted into oblivion for it. Solid Snake George also attempted to take out Suzuho in the confusion, only to be trod upon by Super Metallis X. Eitarou’s gang started crying tears of blood when one of the blasts knocked over ink and ruined the doujin they were working on far below the resort’s surface, hence the rise of Meganeus. After all that, the enemiess regroup and attack Takuto’s group in earnest. They get the upper hand and are about to blast Suzuho when she removes her ribbon to fight back, but that just reveals that they’re psychics, not mages and are unaffected, while both Falce and Tanarot are immediately taken down in their weakened states. The woman attacks Takuto, and Tanarot takes the shot for him. CLIFFHANGER.

And this is why I take absolutely no stock in how the Japanese choose to transliterate their words into English. Macadomi?

Sorry it’s a little late this week. I’m not really certain what the deal with the raws was. Have pans of Finnia and Eneus from the episode as compensation. ef appears to be lost in the same interdimensional internet rift at the moment.

Impressions:

Not the most humorous of episodes, although it’s always nice to hear Kawasumi Ayako sing. The second half was just a biiiiiiiiiiiiit too much Ah! My Goddess for my tastes along with the very predictible punchline of Eneus coming right back to work for Eitarou. After 20 minutes, the status quo must be restored. That is the law of the land in humor shows and for all the other things that Macadmy Macadomi does, having a particularly central plot or progression ain’t one of them. Yes yes, Eneus going off somewhere after her nice little thank-you date with Takuto. I’m sure a central character will just waltz off in the middle of the show.

The first half was alright, but I really didn’t take to Finnia (or however you want to spell it). She’s hyperactive and a moron. Kudos to Eitarou for siccing her on Hard Gay Hapxia when she was really after him, though I’m amazed that none of the others, including Eneus, stepped in to stop it or even save her from a fate marginally worse than undeath. I also really liked Falce’s winter dress. It honestly looks so much better than her usual fanservice friendly outfit, but I probably have a thing for the whole snowbunny look anyway. Comes from growing up in Florida and then moving to the mountains during adolescence. The vaguely perverse neighbor also made his token return. Apparently he has a daughter that tortures him while he’s sick.

Still, it was a pretty nice Eneus episode matching her against the other straight man of the series, so I can’t complain that much. It just wasn’t really why I watch this show.

AI lolis love giant phallic objects.

Impressions:

In a rare twist of fate, a very funny first half followed up by a tremendously boring second half. Luckily, they weren’t even part of the same story, so you could just turn the whole thing off at the eyecatch and not really miss much of anything except for Trincia falling in love with a rocket and about an 8 minute conversation between her and it. Good lord, that just dragged on and on and on with nary a joke in sight. I don’t watch this show for romantic interludes between an AI loli and a giant phallus.

The first half wasn’t even a single story either. We got a minute or two of Ag’s maid crashing into the Academy with strange thoughts in her mind about what Eitarou was doing to him and then another magical item showed up in the form of a ghost for Falce to appease and to give Eitarou a book camera thingy. I can’t complain, we got some delectable shots of Miyabi and Sync out of it. Amazingly enough, despite being in a school swimsuit, Eitarou completely ignored Eineus in favor of making his other two pets pose. So much for the moe appeal of school swimsuits. And yes, those are Sayuki costumes replacing the body stocking censorship during the little AI diving scene.

Late edit:
Ha, apparently Fermi’s transformation sequence (into a cardboard box to be shipped) is a parody of Kamen Rider Kiva. Thanks to Midonin for pointing that out.

BEHOLD IT, I SAY.

Impressions:

Another pretty fun episode, although I thought that the ending was pretty predictible since Eneus mysteriously vanished through the entire race and you can’t change the status quo halfway into a series. I’m also not a huge fan of what appear to be the big bads of the series (not like they’re particularly big or bad), the devil Agrian and the angel Gabrian. I’m open to corrections on either of those names. They understand the whole moe fetishism thing, they’re just completely blasé (good word) about it. The OP also changed slightly to fill them in as the black silhouettes towards the end. There were some good cheap laughs early on with Professor Franklanb Stein being totally unable to see Takuto until the latter put on his cat ears along with his general obsession with moe crap. Eitarou also had a decent joke when Takuto and Falce went to check in with him and he seemed to be hard at work. Instead, he was playing some MMO.

The uniform race was all decent, though I think that Magikano did it quite a bit better. Metallis’ liquid metal suit was certainly… something else. It was bad enough that it looked like he was stuffing his crotch, but George’s version was a whole ‘nother story. It’s funny how Metallis’ life has turned around since the last episode… now George is feeling neglected and trying to win him back. The Hard Gay angel also made his ‘triumphant’ return, though he didn’t really do anything but pose, which I think I’m actually thankful for. I am a little disappointed that there wasn’t more Sync and Miyabi, but hey… can’t have it all. I’m just sad that the guy in the top hat and monocle didn’t win. Now that’s an awesome school uniform.

Brief Summary:

The devil Agrian and the angel Gabrian go shopping for otaku goods with Miyabi and Sync it tow. Back at the Academy, everybody’s in a general furor over… something. Takuto et all go to see Stein where they find him working on designing a new school uniform. Apparently there’s a competition coming up and whatever the person who wins the race is wearing will become the new uniform. He manages to convince Tanarot into being his model. Takuto GET de aru! Elsewhere, Metallis talks Suzuka into being a model for his uniform, which has a power suppressor built in so that she doesn’t need to use the sealing ribbon anymore and can stay as Suzuka. Takuto and Falce check in with Eitarou, but he seemingly doesn’t care about anything. Actually, he’s just wrapped up in an MMO.

Agrian and Gabrian arrive on the day of the race with their auras visibly clashing throughout the school, but they’re just there to observe… one student in particular. Everybody gets ready for the race with Trincia doing the announcing. Miyabi and Sync are being forced to participate, but they’re immediately stampeded right out of the gate. The race runs through various portals with hazards, and it’s totally no holds barred. Tanarot’s in cat ears and short shorts while Suzuka is in… a skintight suit of liquid metal. Tanarot gets punched for making fun of her, but they’re then confronted by the mecha girl (whose name I forget) in her ‘uniform’ which is a giant mecha. Tanarot knocks her over without even breaking stride and she blows herself up, along with a number of other students. Sagami comes by to cheer her up, but his face then splits open and tentacles pop out to… alter her.

The race continues. Lots of explosions and throwing Suzuka through mine fields and Elephant Mazingers and such. They near the end, where Tanarot turns around to confront Suzuka. Suzuka tries the liquid punch again, but Tanarot starts knocking it away and dispersing Suzuka’s suit. With the sealing ability of the suit gone, Suzuka absorbs everybody’s power and explodes in a massive magical overload. Eitarou and all the guys in the stands give the scene of disheveled women a huge thumbs up. Out of the chaos comes Eneus. She stand before the finish line and then starts stripping. She crosses the finish line in the normal school uniform. Eitarou goes nuts at her, but she just cursies to the crowd. Agrian and Gabrian leave, discussing Tanarot and her master as they go.

Magic robots are easy.

Impressions:

First off, the OP changed slightly this week. Instead of Falce swooping in at the end to take Takuto while Suzuho and Tanarot are fighting, it’s… well… an angel of a different breed.

Second, have I mentioned how much I love how this show handles subversions of expectations? It doesn’t spend literally minutes or an entire episode setting up a joke and push things enough that they’re unbelievable and the joke is spoiled minutes before the punchline. It did it before with the Takuto shower scene at the start of episode 2, and it did it marvelously at the start of this episoe. Miyabi and Sync were writhing around sexually and complaining about the things their master was making them do, only for it to cut to him yelling at them to shut up and get back to their manga drawing work. And yes, I realize that explaining the joke ruins it.

This episode was split into two completely disparate parts. The first 12 minutes or so were Metalis’ crush shifting from George to Suzuhoka. I’m not sure Metalis will be quite as entertaining with his affections shifted to Suzuka, but he did accept that she liked Takuto at the end, so I figure it’s only a matter of time before he falls in love with someone else. I kind of hope that it’s Eitaro. The second part wasn’t quite as good as the first, but I do like Miyabi and Sync quite a bit, so I can’t complain that much. They’re much easier on the eyes than the rest of the cast and their futile attempts to escape Eitarou are always good for a chuckle. For how perverse and obsessed he is with all the moe accoutrements, he really doesn’t do anything all that evil to them, so he’s still in my good graces.

Brief Summary:

Part I:
After Suzuho and Tanarot get into another brawl, Suzuho realizes how many students still fear her. During their brawl though, Metalis fell in love with Suzuka’s beauty (after George ran away when Metalis tried to walk him home). He manages to confess to her, and wanting her to make friends, Takuto urges her on, but Metalis is drained by Suzuka’s powers. No matter, they hook him up to battery and the two have some quality time together.

Elsewhere, a parasite monster thingy attached itself to one of the school’s power sources and grew into a huge monster. Only Suzuka and her magic draining can deal with it, so they recruit her into action, and since Metalis is a golem and can survive in the area, he wants to go too in order to protect her. Eitarou outfits Suzuka in a special combat maid uniform and sends them in. The monster attacks, but Metalis is able to block/drain the shot. Suzuka’s powers and the exertion get to him and he collapses. Eitarou activates the jet pack in the maid uniform and Suzuka delivers her final technique, a German Suplex (or Celeste Driver as she calls it), but she’s knocked out by the impact.

The room starts falling apart around them. Metalis goes to her, but hears her say Takuto’s name and realizes that she loves Takuto, not him. Nonetheless, he loves her, so he must save her. He pulls out his own jet pack and tries to fly up and out. Suzuka’s powers keep draining him and he starts to falter, but looking at her, he unlocks the power of love inside him and rockets upward and out.

He comes to later with the whole cast around him, thanking him for saving Suzuho and the school. He silently bids farewell to his first love, then sees that Suzuho brought him a battery as a present and he shouts out his love for her.

Part II:
A panicked maid runs in on her master watching pretty girl anime and gets elecrocuted for it. She’s a masochist though, so goads her master into doing it again before he leaves.

Miyabi’s fed up with Eitarou and wants to escape. Sync agrees, but is skeptical. Miyabi’s got a plan. They bribe whose-her-face-the-girl-otaku from episode 4 to show them an escape path.  She makes them dress up in cosplay outfits before they head out. They make it to the door, despite the numerous dangers and prepare to escape. The door opens… and Eitarou is waiting for them. Turns out that he had bribed the girl as well to bring them back. The two start panicking, but Eitarou smiles beautifully at them and pats them on their heads. Then his grip turns evil and he throws them into the room to get back to work on the manuscript they abandoned.

The demon lord from the start of this part, plus a goth loli, teleport into the academy.

Beefcakes, genderswapping, and facesucking… oh my!

Impressions:

Ah, burly burly men and Takuto as a busty girl. Makes me long for the good old days of Inukami. I have to admit that I don’t think this episode was as much fun as most of the Inukami beefcake hijinks though. They just spent entirely too long through the first half building up the ‘mystery,’ for a relatively predictible punchline. The angel was pretty cavalier with his affection though, sucking off the faces of men,woman, werewolves, and even the random giant robot. I do have to feel a little sorry for Metallis, even though they never showed him being assaulted. He’s such a pathetic joke now. Not that he was ever cool… but… you know… It’s a rough life being a gay robot.

The highlight was easily Stein’s showdown with Captain Muscle. I’m not even certain that I recognized even half of the facial distortions used throughout that scene as the two faced off. Of course… then his first attack was a wolf claw right to the nipple, so you can only feel so sorry for him getting his face sucked off afterwards. It does also bear saying that the Mr Beefy wasn’t really kissing them so much as sticking their entire heads in his mouth. I’m sure there was tongue. Only Sync, Miyabi, and Eitaro got the full body treatment though. Somehow harem master Takuto and his group remained free. Lord Naked also didn’t violate Eneus, thankfully. I don’t think that would have ended well for anybody. Don’t piss off the dog-maids. Words of wisdom to live by.

Also, Takuto may now be the hottest woman in the show.

Video is fairly NSFW, though I did make a cursory attempt to censor the only flagrant thing, though it can be bypassed with little effort… so… whatever. *shrug* Anyway, I’ll probably be stoned for this, but I think I like the clay more. It has a certain kind of bizarre charm that is far more entertaining than random bats, steam, chunks of darkness, or even the somewhat unnerving fanservice shots of things with chins the size of Jay Leno’s entire head. Falce’s full body suit looks pretty ridiculous now though.

The cat maid that will pierce the heavens.

Impressions:

Ugh… been at least a couple months since WordPress ate a post. Oh well, it’s not like this show is exceptionally plot driven.

Pre-OP of this episode was a big Mission Impossible spoof, complete with all the characters redone as if they weren’t trapped in some kind of crazy chibi world. I honestly wasn’t that big of a fan of the school antics at the beginning. They were pretty steeped in every possible cliche imaginable. Thankfully, they abandoned that within two minutes to get back to the weird magic stuff. Still… it didn’t really hit its stride until the second half.

This time, we got two goons with a bag of… something… that needed to be retrieved and ended with a giant robot maid fighting a giant… uh… ballman? I thought the random insertion of the gay robot in the love boat during the robo-maid launch was priceless. Most of the rest of the episode from then on out was just a big ol’ sentai parody, though there were rocket punches and obviously… breast missiles (which was where his slaves were piloting the mech from). The bag, of course, ended up being filled with gatachapon figures and the whole thing was just a big tiff over otaku collecting.

So honestly, I’d probably call this the weakest overall episode of Macademy, but it still put together a rather funny second half, so I’m still pleased. They also toned down the fanservice quite a bit for this one, which was nice after the lesbian backseat orgy in Ga-rei. I still don’t like Takuto, Futaba or Suzuho all that much, but given that so much of every episode and its humor is driven by Ataro instead of the ‘main’ cast. He seems fully aware of all the silliness even as he participates (and causes) most of it. A gifted imbecile I suppose you could say. Falce was also a lot more managable this time around when she was just there to show up and be strange instead of play a main role.