I feel like I’ve already seen this episode two or three times before.

Impressions:

Yeah, we’re clearly in time/space filling mode right now and with the main event next week seeming to be them all going to the hot spring while Saito has a gleam in his eye for some mysterious reason, I don’t think it’s going to change next week either. Don’t they still have about half a dozen antagonists running around? What happened to the girl that liked licking Louise? I can’t even remember what she looks like, but I miss what she added to the show, namely licking. Plus, i can’t go through this whole business yet again with Tifa since she’s still lurking around somewhere, plotting to go searching for Saito’s tonsils with her pointy elven tongue.

Anyway, they get into a fight over nobility nonsense, she forces him to sleep on the couch, he finds a magic mirror that leads straight to Henrietta’s bedroom., they decide to make out because neither of them have a single moral between them, Louise runs off in tears, everybody makes up by the end because Louise is a doormat. I consider it a fair question as to why there was apparently no security whatsoever for a mirror leading straight to the queen’s bedroom… and why they think boarding up the room is a good enough solution to this security breach. Why Saito would begin touching some random mirror he found in the first place is also a good question. Maybe he couldn’t stop from touching himself.

Preview:

Everyone takes a bath.

Not nearly enough Monmon.

Impressions:

Nothing to see here. With the intro arc over with and them not quite ready to move on to the finale, it’s into time-wasting mode apparently, including actually watching people badly act out the show to date. I guess there was a little bit about Tabitha finally supposedly healing her mother through shady elven drugs, but like I’ve said, I’ve forgotten the entirety of the last couple seasons. I can’t even remember which of Tabitha and Charlotte is her real name. I’ll assume neither. I am a little curious how they all managed to sneak onto stage at the start after explicitly showing it to be empty not 10 seconds prior. I’m even more curious why Sylphie was forced to sleep in the yard at the end.

*ahem* Most of it was spent on sexually frustrating Louise, included melons, pineapples, etc. It began with them sneaking off from their own celebration party to have sex and successfully finding the one room that had someone hiding in it. After that, all of Siesta’s breast pineapple cuddling is more just rubbing it in. The parts that weren’t Siesta rubbing her pineapples on Saito were most Louise’s ovaries humming in eager anticipation causing her to emit an almost constant high pitched squeal. And of course, at the end, just when he’s about to convince Louise of the merits of a threesome, dragonblocked by Tabitha. And then on to next week when Henrietta will get in on it too. Oh boysies.

Preview:

Royal affairs.

"And now I will throw it away so you can have it too!"

Impressions:

Wow. This arc was over quickly. At Shana’s pace, this battle could’ve lasted the entire season. It’s maintaining it’s sort of slightly above average animation too, although it’s also maintaining it’s quite a bit below-average brain power. I don’t even remember Saito even having a gun in the first place, but then he drops it against the teleporting mage to fight like a real man. First thing Joseph does? Pick up the gun. Second thing, sink a knife into Saito’s puffy jacket, which apparently part of Saito’s plan. Luckily, his jacket was puffy and as an antagonist, Joseph has to taunt instead of going for a vital organ. And then he was saved anyway by Louise detonating them before Tabitha pinned him to a wall.

Ahem, getting out of order here. Anyway, his master plan at the start was to leech Louise’s magic off her and then use it create amplified explosions with some magic balls. That was… uh… about it actually. I think a key assumption in his plan was "Nobody fights back" considering how Tifa of all people was the one who stunned the coup de grace demon with the super ultra magical ball. She got all angsty after watching Saito and Louise bicker at the end again too, which I’m sure will probably not be cured by whatever aphrodisiac Monmon’s gotten into again next week.

Preview:

Monmon’s Oral Adventure 2.

There’s a 3/3 consensus that the entire lemon segment was just for the melon joke.

Impressions:

After last week’s fact finding adventure through memory lane, I went back to some posts from the last season, and yeah… I still have absolutely no memory of things like the magical costume ball where Saito had breasts, the twin tailed girl that hated elves, the episode spent mostly in the bath, or that it had an evil clown. I do have some lingering memories of Monmon’s oral adventure though. Shows where my priorities lie when it comes to this show.

And because of that above, I recognize that the villains that came back and kidnapped Louise so she can be the damsel in distress while Tifa’s raging sex drive makes her pin down Saito repeatedly are from before. Hell if I have any idea what their previous plans were though. I’ll just assume it was to revive some magical thingy in order to bake the perfect pop tart. Seems about in line with the series. They could probably stand to trim down these antagonists some though. A little focus never hurt anybody. I can’t think of any good reason to remember any of the non-licking villains anyway.

Oh, this episode? Tifa melodrama with her trying to shove her tongue down Saito’s throat as predicted. Louise poisoned and kidnapped. Saito useless. Robble robble neo-Venice in danger of running out of gondolas. It was not exactly an eventful episode until about the last 5 minutes.

Preview:

Off to save Louise.

I just realized that I have no memory at all of what the last two seasons of this show were about.

Impressions:

It’s actually quite a blessing that they didn’t spend any of this recapping past events. For one, the entire episode was filled with revelations of path happenings. Like "Oh yeah, Colbert’s tapping Kirche," and "That’s right, the sword can talk, can’t it?" It’s even more fortunate because they can now safely rehash season two without anybody being the wiser. It’s time for them to A.) Join the clergy because the androgynous pope makes all their ovaries tingle and that’s our ‘quest’ for the season apparently, and B.) Tiff to summon a hero, and the only person that makes her ovaries tingle is Saito. However could this turn out? Louise has to yell at him to go do her be with her if he likes her so much, so hey! We’ve got our melodrama for the season all charted out already too. Throw in another fighter plane or a tank and we’re ready to roll.

So pretty much business as usual around here. At least for awhile. About five minutes from the end, JC Staff apparently gassed the writer’s room. With what is better left to the imagination. There’s the least secure castle ever, without a single guard within earshot, even after the villains du jour apparently blew up a wall. Then somehow, everybody’s on the roof. Muttonchops also hits Saito with his only weakness, a small rock. Maybe we should have had that come from behind Saito, eh? Or maybe a surprise attack instead of floating into the air right in front of him, compressing, then finally actually moving. Then it wasn’t until morning that the guards arrived to take away Muttonchops in chains while Saito and Louise make out in front of Tiff’s balcony, making her moist.

Preview:

A whole lot of blasphemy.

Boobs?

Impressions:

Boobs.

Not a horrible episode since there were at least a couple parts that made me chuckle, but pretty much just a blatant 20 minutes of showing all the girls (and guys) in a variety of swimsuits. If you’re looking for plot or extra closure or something, you’re not going to get it. If you just want more T&A and girls giggling/being molested by an octopus, then more power to you I suppose. It’s pretty much par for the course for the third season at any rate, plus or minus the men in bikinis.

Don’t underestimate it.

Impressions:

Well… that was truly godawful. Louise had a dream about Tabitha and Saito together and lost confidence in herself, so could no longer use magic. Therefore, when the giant golem last boss appeared, everybody had to scurry around like ants until Tabitha decided to make out with Saito and Louise got all uppity again. Yes, I’m not kidding. It sounds like something that should happen as a filler episode partway through the series, but no, this was the big climax. This would all make a lot more sense if… say… Louise had failed at resummoning Saito way back in episode three and this had been built up as the central theme for the show… which way back when, is kind of what I expected, but it was completely dropped for 9 episodes in order to come back full force in this one. Why? I have no idea.

Then at the end, after a magical artillery shot destroys the golem in one hit, everybody gets welcomed back, the villains laugh like maniacs in the distance, and Tabitha kidnaps Saito. LOLSEEYA NEXT SEASON GUYZ. They’d have to in order to wrap up… say… any of the villains actual plans and such. Hell, the antagonists weren’t even particularly set back. Sheffield just had a few bruises while Captain Crazy wasn’t even part of the fight. I guess the animation was above average for the series, but still not particularly amazing. Don’t mind me, I’m just searching for something… anything positive to say here.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Preview:

I expected little and I got little. Well, I got annoyed with Noto, which probably counts as a minus, but the show was pretty much more of the same, albeit this time with a little bit more fanservice and nonsense and a little bit less adventure. It’s tough to be too hard on a series when you expected it to be mindless time consuming drek in the first place, but whatever. Go ahead and insert whatever complaints you may have about pacing, nonsensical plot, villains, etc etc etc. At least it inspired me to write some poetry one week… if you can even call limericks poetry. I’m really not certain what else to say. It was a nice diversion during the weeks that Nabari got distracted and obsessed with developing its yaoi overtones, but aside from the lack of anything else happening on Sundays, really not a recommendable show except to those extremely bored or with nothing better to do. It threatened to be amusing, or at least passably interesting a few times, but in the end, they had to fabricate a crisis by recycling a thrown out plot device from the start of the series.

Well bloody done.

Brazen hussies!

Sorry, running a little bit slow/late today because of football/losing track of time while translating BMW (Progress! HA!!). Nabari probably won’t be up for a while. I’m supposed to be making dinner for friends now, not watching yaoi ninjas or translating nonsensical Type-Moon fanfics.

Impressions:

So… about 5 minutes of discussing the plan to whore themselves out, then 10 minutes of whoring themselves out, a couple minutes of nonsensical "ha ha, high treason is you just being a big silly," and then we beat the big elf baddie with the power of magic nullification and save Tabitha in the last couple minutes. Again, it’s not like I want anything too much more than some pretty pictures to look at for this show, but the plot feels so tacked on at the last second here. Everybody attacked the elf once, then Saito showed up, took a brick or two in the face while everybody else stood around like dimwits and Louise cast her spell… and that was that.

If they wanted to have Sylpheed, Tifa, Monmon and Kirche prance around like Arabian harlots, great… fine… whatever, but I still have no clue what the point of that elf guy even was. He beat up Sylpheed and Tabitha, and pretty much gave up the moment Saito’s void-charged Derf knocked out his magic shield. Meanwhile, we still have two villains and their evil pulsating golem welded to a wall. I’m not even sure that the rest of the party has any idea what two of the three of those even looks like. It seems like I’m making that complaint a lot these days. Enough with the shadowy masterminds or the eleventh hour villains. How about we get a real antagonist somewhere?

Also, the fact that Louise’s ribcage is poking through her skin tells me that her lack of a chest could probably be attributed to the fact that she’s malnourished or something. Oi, was that creepy looking.

Brief Summary:

Kirche flirts with a drunk to get the low down on the castle. They plan to break in and drug everybody there during their sing and dance routine. Louise is annoyed because she’s not part of the dance routine, so Kirche relents and gets her one. Saito walks in as she’s trying it on and tries to bang her, but Guiche interrupts.

Agnes gets all holier than thou and lets Colbert and the students go because she doesn’t want any more hatred in the world. What? What about the standing charges against these clowns and the fact that they attacked a corps of soldiers and led your elite knights on a wild goose chase?

At the social gathering, the guy in charge that they need to take down has a special request for Kirche. The performance starts and they all start shaking their breasts. Tifa… sucks at it. As does Louise, but for different reasons. While Saito takes the stage for a horrible swordplay demonstration, Kirche and Monmon try to figure out what to do. The guy apparently loves little girls. Louise overhears and volunteers and Kirche gives her a drug to knock him out. She goes off to seduce the doofus, but manages to drop the drug.

Saito finds it and asks Tifa about it. She recognizes it and realizes that Louise is in trouble, so they rush off to save her. They get there and Tifa casts the brain-scramble spell on the guy and then Louise kicks hi, in the face when he tries to dive into her chest again. Outside, everybody else is KOed. The elf dude comes out and fights against them briefly before Saito rushes at him, but is pushed back by his shield. While Saito fends him off, Louise casts a dispel on Derf which lets him cut through it. Tifa stops Saito from cutting him down (like he would anyway), and everybody goes running off to find Tabitha.

Preview:

Totali’s wish for a Louise x Golem ending comes true.

Henrietta has the worst patrol guards ever.

Impressions:

Well, far be it from me from expecting anything better than Sylpheed in a cocktail dress and Monmon in an arabian dancer’s outfit. Aside from perhaps the love potion episode, this may be the highlight of the series. From what I’m aware though, the whole dressup is one of the softcore parts of the novels, so apparently you’re not allowed to complain about it as being extraneous fanservice… not that I ever would.

Instead, I’ll pick my battles… the great airship diversion plan is an easy one, a very easy one. That scene was so painfully drawn out with some of the most ridiculous music in this series to date. After Colbert literally pimped Siesta out to distract the guards (dude… I know she’s not your student, but you shouldn’t be pimping out your underaged girlfriend’s associates), there was almost a full minute of watching the guys shovel coal while Siesta and Colbert pushed random buttons or just complained that they couldn’t lift off while we got to watch the airship straining. I’m not kidding, that scene went on for freaking ever.

Of course, I suppose it could have been worth it just to see Agnes lose her mind when she say Colbert. In fact, the art and animation all around for this episode was a few steps above normal. There wasn’t a ton to actually animate, but there just seemed to be a lot more tertiary movement throughout all the scenes in general. Of course, like I said, the music during that part was horrible, and Scarron is never a welcome sight… but hey… I never really expected anything from this series than something to sarcastically complain about on Sundays and some pretty pictures to look at.

Mmmmm Arabian Monmon. Now just give her a veil to really bring out those freckles…

Oh right, and the villains have some pulsating golem behind a giant door or something. I don’t even think I remember how Tabitha even relates to any of that anymore.

Preview:

No, Louise… just… don’t even try it.

And yet, here I am, writing.

Impressions:

A tremendously boring episode full of what might pass for setup or development elsewhere, but I couldn’t really bring myself to care. Evil elf watches Tabitha sleep, and then lets her know that they’re going to be making her crazy too. Between the insane clown that rides on a flying manta ray, the elf that watches you sleep, and Captain Pedophile leading them all in the search of some kind of holy land, sanity is apparently on a holiday here. Also, Sylpheed spends all of 5 minutes of screentime pretending to be Tabitha’s sister before just transforming in front of everybody. What was the point of pretending like you were her sister again? Why didn’t she just do that from the start?

Sadly, exceedingly naked and exceedingly squeaky Sylpheed was pretty much the highlight of the episode. Most of the rest was Henrietta being a ginormous bitch and throwing everybody in jail after they resigned nobility when she forbade them from helping Tabitha. Then, about seven minutes of Louise whining at Henrietta, they break up too. Whoopie. The biggest mystery of this episode involving talk of soul potions, holy lands, and legendary shapeshifting dragons… is why all of these supposedly highly educated mages couldn’t put two and two together about a naked girl suddenly appearing and disappearing in the middle of a crowded campus, and a dragon appearing the next moment.

Also on the mysteries list would be the question as to why Siesta was hanging out with all the students. Aren’t they all nobles that look down on spit on her? Doesn’t she have work that she should be doing? Is she taking off her pants to give them to Sylpheed in the preview?

No, wait… scratch that. The bigger mystery is how they managed to get Kirche and Colbert’s fortress of doom mobilized and flown what appears to be an out of control 10 miles per hour before anybody found Sylpheed a pair of pants. They were just giving their robes away earlier, but all they could scrounge up for Sylpheed was a burlap sack. Can’t they just magick up some clothes? Or maybe one of these noble jerks could lend her their cloak instead of just gawping at her. It’s not even like it was a flattering burlap sack.

Preview:

What lies beneath Siesta’s skirt? My guess: she opens up like a matryoshka doll.