I think they ran out of creativity after Kotoha’s fight.

Impressions:

The seven month or so gaps between these episodes really doesn’t do the series any good. The whole Rin thing is pretty weak too and I could physically feel the bile rising in my gullet when Hime curled up in a ball and began feeling sorry for herself after Rin told them all that she hated them and the city so they shouldn’t come after her and fight anymore. Thankfully, everybody else was more intelligent and just ignored her and it only took her about three minutes to snap back out of it. That didn’t make it any less moronic though, just not as painful as it could have been.

The action wasn’t bad this time around, but it was certainly nowhere near as impressive as the Kotoha fight last time around. I mostly ripped that because it was the only time Ao was relevant in the entire OVA. There was quite a bit of it through the first two thirds at least, even if it wasn’t strung together in a nicely coherent single extractable scene. They were leaning a little too hard on the "formless and textureless black tentacles flying through the air" approach at times though. It looks less terrible when actually animated instead of CG, but it’s still incredibly generic. I also feel like I missed something somewhere. It just kind of jumps from Akina tuning the evil out of Zakuro to a long ED montage of everybody happily getting along. I don’t remember her exactly reforming at the end of the last episode before Enjin directly attack them. You’d think either of those events would be important enough to at least note instead of Hime scarfing down more ramen.

Overall though, it was a decent enough OVA. Much better than the TV series to be sure. The writing certainly could have been better focused, particularly in the meandering episode 1, and all of Rin’s angst via flashbacks is difficult at best to stomach, but at least it was stylish and put up some decent fight scenes. It’s not a compelling movie-length set of OVAs, but it’s not a bad way to pass the time either.

I don’t think crashing planes into monsters is very politically correct.

Impressions:

I have mixed feelings about this episode. They did a great job with both Rin attacking Kyosuke and Hime, as well as Kotoha’s fight with Zakuro, but there was really no weight to the scenes. The music in particuar hampered them a lot. It wasn’t Merry-level bad, but the atmosphere didn’t fit at all. Some of it was a bit silly too, particularly Kotoha’s giant hammer sort of tapping a hand away, but for the most part, it looked pretty good. A completely different kind of action from this week’s Dog Days, but also fine.

There was also some really weird and clumsy attempts to add backstory after Zakuro had been nuked… but before she was nuked a second time. She took Rin in and sheltered her, then turned out to be insane and obsessive then… yada yada… something happened off screen that we don’t know… and Rin ended up in the city, but now wants to go back to live with the evil crazy obsessed woman. Uh, okay. I think they were trying to add depth to Zakuro before Enjin nuked her and turned her full-on crazy, but she was already fairly insane to begin with and crazy is not an empathetic character trait.

…And now to wait until September for the third one.

Juri will beat your tail in.

Impressions:

A reboot of Yozakura Quartet (at least as far as the staff and studio goes) in an unfortunately rather protracted OVA form. While this episode wasn’t stellar, it was a lot more fun than the original series, much lighter on the exposition, and the style does make for some rather cute shots. It’s a shame that the next episode isn’t until February. Whoever planned this release schedule should be beaten with a stick repeatedly. Anyway, the change in artistic direction is the biggest alteration and it’s easy to see. Everything is in a rougher style which sometimes works and sometimes makes Akina’s forehead big enough to land the Exxon Valdez on it. I’m not a huge fan of the style personally, but like I said, it has its moments. It does let them get away with barely any stills or lingering shots of the scenery… the bane of the TV series, so that’s an improvement.

Most of this episode was fluff. I would have liked a little more development, or action, or… anything. It’s cute and all to see Yae jumping around in a bear head and Juri in her short short skirt kicking butt, but nothing happened until the end. Just like the TV series, the music continued to be a pleasure to listen to at least. Most of the episode was just a reintroduction to the city and characters. That’s not much for an intro episode in general, but after a TV series and with a 5 month gap before the next episode, a berserk Rin nearly taking off Oni-onii’s head in the last minute doesn’t cut it for plot. This was this director’s first time at the helm, so I’m hoping he learned from this and can improve the next time around… in February. Sigh.

If only… if only…

Impressions:

100% totally as expected. Bleh. Hime Lancer fights Enjin Gilgamesh throwing snakes for about 10 seconds before everybody else arrives and he uses the power of "looking like Gin" to sucker punch Akina. Didn’t see that one coming. Half the team fights and beats Shinozuka by hitting him with a car. The other half tracks down Enjin Gilgamesh and saves him from letting Yae kick his ass, but he ruins it by slicing Lancer’s pretty scarf, so she creates a deus ex tornado to blow away all the cherry petals and save the day. Whoopie. Oh yeah, then she uses Excali Bolg to bat Gil into Caster’s energy beam and kill him. Caster then sews up Lancer’s scarf or something. Who knows. It wasn’t really important, unless you’re in the wholesale scarf business.

At least there were about 15 seconds of quality action in this episode. Sure, it may have been spread out across three different scenes, but they made me perk up for at least a moment, only to go back to sleep once the Enjin pontification started up again. This ending really was so predictable that it was painful. I think I could have storyboarded this two weeks ago, right down to Gin thanking Akina and asking him to keep protecting the city as he was sent off to wherever good spirits go when they’re energy balled. Enjin could have at least stabbed through Akina or something. Add a little more drama here. Also, since when could Kyosuke shoot lightning or Touka fly?

Totali will be pleased though, since Hime had ramen for the first time in over a month I believe.

Bleh.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Final Thoughts:

Well, way back at the start, I said that this reminded me a lot of Rental Magica, and lo and behold, it really was. The series had a lot of potential early on and even through the middle, could have redeemed itself with a strong finish. Unfortunately, none of that ever really developed. Nobody really grew. Nobody matured. Nobody did anything more than just shake off whatever problem developed in the previous five minutes and then kill some goo monster. Even at the end, it was hard to really get behind (or even understand) what the fighting was really about. They never really gave a good idea of how life would be totally ruined if their city in the middle of absolutely nowhere were to lose its guardian thingies. Gin was also never developed at all, so saving him wasn’t really a concern. Enjin’s goals were also kind of laughable. He’ll prove that people can’t coexist by blowing them up. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy there, eh? Even any drama around the fight at the end was pretty much neutered by having the final solution nun and city god continuously lurking in the background.

So yeah, a very milquetoast show from start to finish. If you’ve been waiting on it to see the final reviews, I really don’t think it’s going to win any hardcore fans at all, and I imagine anybody with any doubt has long since jumped ship. Nothing about these last two episodes should really draw them into finishing the show either. There were the occasional glimpses that it could have been something more, but absolutely nothing in this show ever developed anywhere or became anything beyond what was already shown in the very first episode. I don’t think I could even tell you why Akina or Kotoha were so deadset on protecting the city. Boredom, I suppose. It’s not like they’ve got anything better to do in the city.

Overall, it wasn’t horrible, but I would be hardpressed to call much of anything about it aside from the soundtrack as particularly inspired or noteworthy. I expect it to be completely forgotten in 2 months and only referenced to as "one of those shows that Savage Genius was involved with." Hopefully next season Thursdays will be a bit better.

Juri, you are the best thing about this show and I will miss you.

Impressions:

Man, why couldn’t the entire series have been like this episode? Well, minus Tomokazu Seki, but I think I’ve irrationally ranted enough about him lately. Shinozuka actually fought this episode instead of just teleporting around, Kotoha chanted out a massive tank weapon, Juri bodyflopped and then straddled Hime, Yae got to pretend to be cuisinart hood ornament, Kyosuke tried to hit people with the street, and random mobs fought goo monsters. There’s nothing sillier than seeing random people clinging to a goo monster’s head while other people wail on its legs with a shovel. Actually, I think the proportions on the Kotoha eyecatch this episode were probably sillier, but that’s more easily ignored than mobs on goo.

I also really liked that they just briefly and succinctly dealt with Kyosuke’s backstory here. No long flashbacks, no needless exposition, just a quick aside to show why he cares about Hime and Touka as much as he does. Enjin hanging out on the Tokyo Tower Not-The-Tokyo-Tower was a bit over dramatic and silly, though I loved Kotoha’s bits. Of course, in true Clamp Not-Clamp fashion, they blew it up. The moment they showed Enjin sitting on it, I knew the poor thing was doomed. Damn you, Clamp… setting the precident for the doom of our anime towers!

Brief Summary:

The remaining guardians split up, Kyosuke and Akina will go on the attack while Ao and Kotoha try to track down Enjin. Kyosuke starts out by saving ol’ whose-his-face the old guy from one of the goo monsters. Kyosuke flashes back briefly to protecting Touka in the woods when Hime found them and welcomed them to the city, and that’s why he’s determined to not fail her. Meanwhile, Ao directs leads them on to one of the pillars, avoiding the shadows on the way. Hime’s still recovering, and tries to leave, but Juri bodyflops on her and tries to pin her down. When Hime keeps struggling, Juri headbutts her into unconsciousness.

Back on the battlefield, Akina finishes off the goo monster and then destroys a shadow with his power, but it clearly takes a lot out of him. Kyosuke yells at him to be more careful in a gesture of tsundere battlefield love, but they’re interrupted by a thrown vending machine. Shinozuka follows up on the attack and Kyosuke engages him. Elsewhere, the shadows are getting thick around Ao’s group, but Yae falls from the sky and rides the hood of the car, slicing away the shadows as they drive. At the shelter, Touka worries about her brother and Akina while the old men argue about the fate of the city. Ao climbs the pillar and unleashes her Satellite ability to search the town. She manages to find him on the knockoff Tokyo Tower.

Hime gets up and receives the sacred spearhead from the old man. Juri and he see her off. As she goes, she sees a bunch of normal people looting protecting the city. She gives them directions, and as she leaves to join the other guardians, she sees the mob fighting off (and defeating!) one of the goo monsters. In a parking lot, Shinozuka and Kyosuke keep fighting. They’re pretty evenly matched, but Shinozuka gets Kyosuke in a headlock and Akina can’t do anything. They all hear a car, so Akina fires a blast to the side of Shinozuka. The recoil lets Kyosuke kick him away and the two leap into the window of Ao’s group’s car (now with Touka too) and drive off.

On the railroad tracks, Kotoha chants the components of a giant cannon mounted on a train. She finishes, and takes off, running parallel to the rest of the party in their car. She takes aim at Enjin, still far away, and fires. Enjin laughs and just adjusts the wind so the shot would go wide, but Yuuhi sends a massive blast that re-redirects the shot to hit Enjin full on. Now extremely pissed off, he jumps to one of the pillars and thrusts his hands into it. All of the pillars begin to bloom as Hime arrives and engages Enjin.

Delicious Wanton Property Damage

Preview:

Final battle. Cherry petals everywhere.

"Make it big, textureless, and add some fangs."

Impressions:

Meh, whatever. Blah blah blah abandon city, Hime pissed at Akina, Yuuhi shows up to grope his secretary lay the smack down on the elders, everybody fights giant white… things and then we’ll get to fight them some more next episode. Oh boy! I’m glad Kyosuke kept kicking ass this episode, as opposed to Hime being completely worthless, but really… very little happened this episode and it did it very very slowly. The fight against the gao monsters wasn’t even particularly interesting either. I’m not even certain why they were hurt by Hime swatting at them. There were no impacts or cuts. Just a little stick thwapping at a 40 foot tall gooblob.

Oh well, Kyosuke vs Shinozuka next week at least.

Preview:

Yes, this makes a ton of sense.

Let Touka fight, dammit.

Impressions:

Blah blah blah. Another week of vanilla anime lite. About five minutes of interesting scenes and 15 minutes of exposition, as usual. Stupid slow Thursdays. Touka stole my heart this episode for adding violence and wanton property destruction as her powers started going berserk because of the loss of the pillar. I’m just glad that she didn’t break the spatula. I do have to wonder how she even walks without leaving craters since stubbing her toe apparently has enough force to rip a giant chunk of concrete out of the ground and send it flying down the street, but hey… magic.

There was a lot of Ao angst this episode as she bounced around town before settling on yelling at Akina over Gin/Enjin and how Akina is just making them all suffer by saying that Gin is still alive. It’s unclear whether Hime was just really really pissed or actually losing control of her power like Touka was, but I’d assume the latter for now. I’m not really certain why Ao was so aghast at seeing Hime pissed off and training by herself though. We also see the rest of Enjin’s uninteresting past as well as Gin’s ‘death,’ and how Akina couldn’t pull the trigger then. He really has dropped a couple rank in recent episodes, but at least he’s still macking on all the girls in a vain attempt to win him over to his wussy side.

Oh yeah, and Hime/Akina find out that replacing the pillar requires a sacrifice. Maybe I’m just too educated or jaded about this stuff, but I had sort of assumed that for awhile now. I’m sort of looking forward to, yet also dreading next week when it appears that the Scooby gang here takes on a giant version of Misuzu’s dinosaur.

Preview:

Gao~

Man, you were doing so well for almost two whole months.

Impressions:

I have to admit that as the action started winding down and Enjin started ranting and raving about how much this world sucks blah blah blah humans and youkai blah blah blah will remake the world, I got up to get a brownie sundae, and when I came back, Enjin had his arms elbow deep in the city’s magic shrine thingy which caused one of the pillars to start growing branches and flowers, and there were tentacles sprouting everywhere. I have the feeling that I missed something while my attention was elsewhere, though I really don’t feel any powerful need to go back to figure out what exactly I missed. On the other hand, it was a damn delicious brownie sundae.

I was very happy with Hime all through this episode. She didn’t think twice about trying to kill Enjin, even though he was in Gin’s body. It wasn’t until Akina got involved and told her that Gin was still hanging on in there somewhere that she even hesitated, and at that point, Enjin was pretty much sick of playing around. I was also thrilled that Kyosuke was pretty much the only one who was actually able to land a hit on Enjin aside from Yae, who was all but forbid from interfering by Yuuhi. Sure, he coldcocked Enjin from behind… twice… once with a giant stone lantern, but Kotoha was using an anti aircraft gun and Hime upgraded her spear into some kind of laser weapon, so a hunk of stone is really a step down in comparison. I’m a bit confused as to why Akina didn’t help Ao and Kotoha try to take down Shinozuka. Fine, he thinks that his friend and Hime’s crush is still alive and so he doesn’t want to fight Enjin… but what’s his excuse for not wanting to fight Shinozuka? Laziness? I’m not sure he’d even be able to hit with his slow attacks anyway, but he could at least try to be useful instead of just getting in the way.

Preview:

Touka and more background on the city.

Can youkai even be underage?

Impressions:

Another rather uncompelling episode from the vanilla ice cream show of the season. Most of the episode is consumed by a festival/ritual for Hime to take her spear into a cave and pray for the local gods to do whatever the hell it is that they do. Then everybody but Akina and Rin gets drunk on ‘youkai water,’ Hime sings the tsundere song some more and in the last couple minutes, Enjin kidnaps Ao and calls out the rest of the gang. No, Totali, nobody eats ramen this episode either. Stop asking me about it.

As you might expect, the drunken silliness was by far the best part of the episode, though Akina and Touka repeatedly ignoring Hime’s rantings to flirt takes a pretty close second. Yuuhi probably got the best/worst of it, being assaulted by his sister and possibly assistant. I’m not even sure what Juri was doing hanging around that threesome, but she fit right into the costume fetishist theme at any rate.  At least next week looks like it’ll be significantly more exciting as the entire preview were fight scenes between the gang and Enjin/Shinozuka.

PS, Spatula++

Preview:

Fight, fight, fight!

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Impressions:

Well, that was anticlimactic, and honestly just a little bit pathetic. I’m not certain if it’s possible for Darth Shinozuka to have been less disappointing. Sure, they could have used stills, but I’m not actually convinced that that would have been any worse than speedlines bullets while they just faded the same shot of him in and out. And then they reused the exact same clip. So… he kidnapped Kotoha’s friends to try and pull a Sith move on Kotoha, but instead of actually fighting, he just teleported around. Great action scene there, guys. At least the Hime/Kotoha sparring sequence was slightly better, but I swear to Zeus that we saw the same flashback of Kotoha in the fire at least five times through the episode. I GET IT. YOUTH. TRAGEDY. FIRE. SADNESS. Enough already.

I was also pretty disappointed that Enjin/Gin just immediately disappeared at the start of the episode after the cliffhanger last time. He didn’t even say or do anything, he just grinned and then disappeared in a murder of crows. I am a little curious what’s up with Kotoha’s plane ticket and why exactly she went berserk when Hime accidently stabbed it. She was more concerned about karaoke through most of the episode than anything else. Probably the most entertaining part of the whole episode was the series of short comic Kotoha moments done after the ED. I’m not certain where these came from exactly, but at least they made me chuckle a bit so it didn’t end on a completely sour note.

Preview:

Festival time.