It feels like it’s been awhile since I made a pokemon joke about this show.

Whew. Finally caught up. Kind of. The third Tethe’alla OVA came out while I was gone, but doesn’t appear to be available anywhere. I guess that means I’m good now… just in time for about three or four OVAs this week!

Impressions:

Well, I don’t really know. It’s an ending, but everything being restored to the status quo felt pretty artificial and Karasuba’s fight was just there for the sole purpose of adding a little action to the last episode. I’m not sure how they could have really salvaged it at this point into too much better though. It suffered even more than the first season from its final arc not really having much of anything to do with the main characters and just being about them helping some random persons that will never be seen in the show again. This one was probably worse since the good guys lost pretty much every single battle in the end but won the war because the bad guy simply up and walked away at the end of it all without a single one of them even landing a blow on her.

The brief bits they animated were nice, and the music good, but it still served no actual purpose and more disappointingly, ended without the rest of the team actually doing anything. I miss the days day when Minato had a pair of balls too. What ever happened to him shoulder tackling the enemy instead of trying to use his soft flesh as a guard against blades. Couldn’t he have at least picked up a pipe and tried to fight instead of whining and curling up in a ball on top of Musubi? Hell, I still have yet to figure out why Minato never kisses them for their power up before battles in the first place. Especially after people start yelling how X is not strong enough to beat Y. Maybe sekirei have chronic halitosis along with their chronic inevitable spine problems from the WMDs attached to their chests.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Final Thoughts: 

It was a decent sequel, but suffered from meandering around fairly aimlessly through the second half of the show and never really coming to a climax. A collapsing building was the most threatening antagonist going into the final episode before Karasuba leapt in with a cry of "We must kung-fu fight." All the parts were there, but pretty similar to the first season, it just kind of ended without resolving anything. They’ve got decent antagonists pouring out of the woodwork, but can’t seem to focus on any one of them for long enough to actually get any inertia, even going so far as to switch antagonists multiple times mid-arc.

That’s really the biggest issue with the show in the later going. Seven Arcs just never managed to inject any real sense of importance into anything but Uzume’s death. Most of what happened boiled down to glorified fetch quests handed out from on high like this was some kind of demented clone of Endless Frontier, with slightly less bounciness. They did do a very good job with the introductory arc and I’m glad that Uzume stayed dead (for now) after a grievous injury, unlike some other shows I could name. It wouldn’t take much to bring her back though, but let’s just leave that aside for now.

Overall, I’d say it was a step down from the first season and dragged through the second half, but is still a solid action show and better than most. It does what it does competently with Seven Arcs’s now almost traditional pacing issues. You should still start with the first season if you’re interested though. Seven Arcs all but screamed SEQUEL COMING at the end of it, so I assume that they’ll spit out another season in a couple years after they cough up some more Nanoha. I still say that they should just take the premise and go wild with it instead of waiting for the source to excrutiatingly slowly build up. Of course, I also want them to make more Inukami, so perhaps they just hate me. I may as well wish for a unicorn that craps buffalo wings while I’m at it.

I’m very annoyed with you right now, ‘action’ shows.

Impressions:

Yawn. Everybody gets separated as per standard group cliches, fights off-screen for awhile (or against Minaka’s PSP powered cartoon traps), then he pulls the building’s self-destruction switch while all the antagonists flee. And Musubi has to fight a giant ball. I can feel the drama oozing out of every pore. The only fight that got any real attention this week was the completely random Karasuba vs Mutsu, which began and ended for the sake of… I don’t even know. Hell, Haihane just lured Tsukiumi into a corny crushing room and then took a nap by the door. Then like the rest of the antagonists, ran off as soon as the good guy music kicked in. The separation nonsense was more or less expected and comes with any good guy party the size of a small orgy. All the fighting happening off-screen before the antagonists run away 4 minutes later… not so much.

The current things menacing the protagonists at the end of the episode are A.) A collapsing building B.) some electric spiked balls, and C.) Stairs. That’s not where you want to be going into your final episode. Apparently Karasuba’s going to wander over somehow to pretend to be the last boss for a minute or two. Better than nothing, but despite the dramatic music, there wasn’t actually much onscreen fighting this week and almost nothing in the preview either. I think that I’m most disappointed in Akitsu and Taki, who beat the rest to the punch in Dynamic Fleeing Ability by giving up and wandering off as soon as Homura got back up. I almost miss the bridge. At least people stuck around and beat on each other then. Le sigh.

FYI for the last time, I’m off camping next weekend. Sekirei, Mitsudomoe, and SCO are going to be delayed a day or two.

Preview:

Building wins.

Damn it, Minaka.

Impressions:

This went in something of a bizarre direction from start to finish. Higa hands over a bunch of data to Minato on Chiho’s condition as well as tells him that the MBI has the tech to save her, so he calls Mom and gets the final plot in motion by way of Minaka offering to help if they can make it to his tower while at the same time promising to reward all the other Sekirei if they can stop Minato. They then immediately squandered the entire premise of a battle royale by having Nishi pop up in the middle of the brewing rumble and fight every single one of the grunts on his own, so I guess it’s back to the disciplinary squad to be the last bosses again. Kind of like if they had just skipped the entire first third of the episode and attacked the MBI on their own. Meh. At least Homura, Matsu, and Kusano are off fighting non-Team Rocket.

Not exactly the direction I was hoping we’d go in, mostly because they devolved to another random quest handed down by Minaka to cure Generic Magical Anime Illness. I guess we’re riding Chiho and "Do It For Uzume!" all the way to the finish line then. Great. I love random unspecified illness that can only be cured by random unsecified widgets. I’m also not thrilled with the way they handled Higa here, particularly since after all that buildup of him being evil and manipulating Uzume, Minato immediately swallows the whole "the MBI is the real bad guy" stuff and then lets Higa apparently bow out of the season. Some day you’ll figure out pacing, Seven Arcs, but I guess that’s not in the cards quite yet.

Preview:

Wasn’t Karasuba at the MBI two minutes ago?

Man, she gets changed fast.

Impressions:

Very intense first half leading into Uzume’s death. It did get a bit… weird… after that, particularly the visual style of Matsu’s little attack. Of course, she got to sacrifice herself for Musubi because there’s no way that a protagonist would off her, but it works. I’m much happier with this fight too than Basara’s… thing… today. It’s nice to see some actual choreography and cleverness instead of light blasts exploding on the ground before people run at each other. The end of her fight with Musubi was a little bit disappointing though. Both of them just collapsed before everybody got coldcocked by Higa’s B-Squad. I’m actually surprised that this show would off a protagonist, even a secondary one like her. Hopefully they won’t revive her from the dead, like other shows I could name.

Like I said though, once Uzume took the hit, things got a bit drawn out with her death and weird with the rest of it. Uzume got the full operatic death, complete with long flashback and enough time to make Minato promise to protect Chiho, etc etc. One would think a spear to the spinal column would have had a more immediate effect. Of course, now we’re back to the issue of how they’re going to end this. While we have Higa as a real antagonist (finally), with Uzume gone, we’re also temporarily back to "We are Sekirei, we must kung-fu fight." I guess that’ll suffice, but at this point, I think they’re just going to throw everybody into a room and make them fight and call that the ending. Who knows though. Maybe like Asura, 7Arcs already has season 2 of PE set and they’re just going to piss around until the end of this batch. Pacing is not exactly their strong suit.

There was also a special Uzume ED this week, but it’s just stills and I’m not a huge fan of the song, so find it on your own.

Preview:

I don’t think so, Matsu.

Stellar performance there.

Impressions:

Yet another transitioning episode that’s hard to say anything intelligent about because absolutely nothing happens. The whole thing could have been skipped by just having Tsukiumi and Musubi show up in the first couple minutes and nothing of particular value would have been lost except for Horie Yui as the Sekirei of Domestic Abuse. That could have certainly been more subtle. It doesn’t help that she has almost the exact same design as her Kampfer character too. I also have to wonder how exactly they’re keeping this Sekirei plan a secret when one of them is carrying a giant hammer through a hopital and the city streets.

It was a little more watchable than the last couple since they were focusing on showing some different Sekirei/Ashikabi relationships instead of giant dumps of exposition, but Seven Arcs still isn’t living up to what it could be doing here. At least after all the waffling around, we’re finally getting back to some action next week. I’m still not sure how exactly that’s going to lead into whatever ending they have planned for it. Seven Arcs should really just take this series and run. The best part of this season so far has been the completely original mini-arc at the start. Let’s have more of that and less mopeyness already. Hell, Minato was even kind of manly back then. Now he’s just… Yukimura. Good lord, I’m in bizarro world here.

Preview:

Uzume vs the team.

Poor girl.

Impressions:

Sekirei’s on that same kind of weird DVD release schedule that Working is on which comes from airing its first episode a month early. With the first DVD/Blu Ray comes a prologue episode which is mostly just an excuse to have the Sekirei run around in their skivvies. It is far preferable to spitting out this kind of filler episode during the main run though, particularly with the question of how Yukari didn’t notice Musubi’s Sekirei mark while groping her or how Shiina wouldn’t have seen Kuu with all the Sekirei gathered in the same couple buildings for an entire day.

They hit all the generic fanservice show high points in one go, the physical examination, the beach trip, and the hot springs bath, with Benitsubasa destroying most of them, saving Homura the pain of deciding where he/she’s supposed to be. I can’t really blame Beni either. Poor girl is the whipping boy of this series. The twin tails also do not work on Tsukiumi or Musubi at all. I’m not even sure what the hell Musubi was wearing either. She looks like she should be holding up the round number in the middle of a boxing match.

There was also a very very long joke preview for the next ‘episode’ that was made up by doing new voice overs of clips from the last season, but capping that has no real value. Also, with this eyecatch, Seven Arcs has now fulfilled its quota of putting either Nanoha or giant burly sweaty oily men in every one of their shows. Good work, team.

A game for all ages.

Impressions:

Another pretty dull episode that wandered all over the place without actually getting anywhere. At least it looks like we’re finally getting back to the Sekirei actually trying to beat the hell out of each other next week after all these totally vacuous episodes. The show usually handles its plot a lot better than this too. It doesn’t just meander from some random ashikabi to a flashback about Miya to Uno Naho to Uzume getting ‘orders’ to take out Minato with nary more than a tenuous thread to keep it all connected. This episode just felt completely extraneous to… well… anything and served absolutely no purpose. At least I could see people’s lips move I guess. Thanks for lowering my standards, Basara.

Just like the first season, I’m a bit worried that they’re really not even trying to build up to any sort of finale here. I understand that the source is still progressing… slowly… but that’s still no excuse to not try to get some kind of drama going to add weight to wherever they decide to end this. They really need to start setting up for at least something next week. It doesn’t need to be a conclusion to the series, but there needs to something driving the show. I’d prefer some decent antagonists, but at the moment, Karasuba sees to be the only one they’re interested in spending any appreciable amount of time on. Besides, it’s Seven Arcs. If there’s one thing they’re good at, it’s forging off in their own directions, especially when magical girls are involved.

Preview:

Preview text goes here

I’ll stick to my delusions, thank you very much.

Nph. Yeah yeah, I’m up, I’m up. I get to sleep in sometimes too.

Impressions:

An amazing episode where Super Sekibraver shows up out of hiding and then proceeds to destroy the city. After beating up the entire team, Then they have to gather the 9 Sekiballs in order to wish his pants back onto the moon to give themselves an opening to steal his Popstar. That turns him back into his guinea pig form so they can capture him in a Master Sekiball. Then everybody goes to the hot springs, where Minaka steals Homura’s penis. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

It actually did get slightly better in the last 5 minutes or so when A.) The exposition finally stopped, and B.) The Executioner Squad spent a minute or two beating up generic army grunts… most of which we’ve seen before anyway… but for the most part, it was about 4 minutes of stroking Homura’s… ego… and then the rest of the episode was one big ol’ expositional dump about the Sekirei’s nonsensical past. Who cares? They can (and probably are) pokemon for all it matters. Hell, they might as well be magical dwarves hewn from trees and nothing would be any different. The sum and total outcome for this episode was another plot inducing text message in the last couple seconds. There were a couple cute parts, such as Miya going more unhinged than usual or Musubi and Kuu teasing Tsukiumi, but… meh. Show, don’t tell, dammit. At least I was expecting this. It doesn’t make it any better or any more acceptable, but it does dull the impact a little bit.

And I am well aware that you giggled at "Sekiballs." Stop that, you.

Preview:

Uno!

Tongue Assault.

Impressions:

Extremely underwhelming. After all the buildup, the big rumble occurs almost completely off-screen. They could have easily stretched this fight out another episode in order to actually show something… anything… if they had wanted to. Instead, most of the Ashikabi end up chasing each other off until just Higa and Minato’s groups remain, their team all pairs off (Kuu ends up taking the helpless human), and then they all but disappear except for a few stills or a brief 5 seconds of fighting. Lame. Not anywhere close to the same level of lame as today’s Basara, but let’s not call a sick horse anything but a sick horse. 7Arcs clearly has the budget and the talent to make some impressive fights, but they’re shoved off in the corner to keep the visuals interesting while characters give their morality speeches. It’s better than nothing, but it still trivializes the action by pushing it into a background detail instead of the focus.

Nothing particularly surprising about anything else. I expected everybody to make a much bigger deal about Uzume, but apparenty their minds were occupied by posing instead of noticing that their former housemate was trying to kill them. Kagari gives herself up to her powers and tries to let them nuke her, Tsukiumi drenches him again, Minato gives a pithy speech about frienship and sticks his tongue down her throat. And Bob’s your uncle. I’d complain more, but it is a rather effective finishing move in any fighting show. I have absolutely no idea why Goku never tried it.

Preview:

Massive expositional setup about the fight ‘really beginning,’ no doubt.

Not exactly ready to crack the case of "Minato’s Missing Testicles," is she?

Impressions:

Another pretty lacking setup episode. 7Arcs really needs to work out its pacing issues one of these days. So much of this episode could/should have been condensed into half the length. Minato decides to go save Homura as a friend, and the multi-way brawl for him/her begins on the rooftop, but it took forever to get there, stopping along the way for Minato to alternatively enjoying the lingering sensation of Homura’s breast and then be shocked by the prospect of kissing him/her. You’ve already made out with a little girl, Slick. At least that would be a legal step upward. Tsukiumi was also the last horse to leave the stall in figuring out Kagari’s oh so secret identity.

The art was also really really dodgy this week, even moreso than is usual for 7Arcs. They didn’t have a whole ton of action to make up for it either. Hopefully that means that the budget is already being allocated for next week’s episode, but that’s probably entirely too optimistic. The ‘fighting’ this week was just Homura and Akitsu chucking things back and forth before Uzume showed up to interrupt the fight with a bunch of stills. Thanks, Uzume. That’s all there really was; just stretching everything out, a few jokes about Akitsu and Tsukiumi being dumb, and a lot of very dubious quality art. I think Kazehana and Matsu’s breasts were actually slowly sliding up their chests at one point in an attempt to eat their faces.

Preview:

Rooftop brawl.