“KUU!!”

Fill in the blank. He’s ______________ .
a. friendly
b. dangerous
c. a creepy madman swinging a sword around

Do you choose to go with him, Shiratori Kuu?

LOLPWNED

I like how they didn’t even bother drawing the vines separately. They’re all like, “let’s save all our budget for those feathers later in the episode, and just draw a rough shape in MS Paint and fill it greenish.” It’s classy (and looks shitty as hell). There’s just like… this blob of green around Kyoushiro’s midsection. wtfslimegirlraep?

OUR POWERS COMBINED, …!

So the AAs group together to form a super robot formed of each one’s strong part (the loli’s legs, Setsuna’s right arm, Chikane’s left, and Kuu’s… head…? So Kuu’s strength is her brain? How come I was never aware of this before?!) and proceed to pwn the sky. Those feathers (hot snow?) start falling, and the world is perfect in the eyes of one fucked up mad scientist. Hey, now would be an alright time to fanboy about Chikane some more. See, she’s the “sword of the left hand,” and left-handed swordsmen include… oh, Link, for one. Link, being pure win, relays that to Chikane through left-handed swords. Mmmhm.

“MY CUTE CIELO!”

Yeah…? Cute, eh…? I don’t know what kind of hobbies you have, but earlier you told your little brother that he intoxicates you. … while having a flashback to lying in bed naked with him. And then you told him that he should always be crying. That’s creepy shotacest right there, boya.

“NOT THERE KYOUSHIRO, IT’S NOT CLEAN!”

Hot. Surprise. Freefallingthroughhotsnowskyfromgiantmechandcrumblingstonespiralstaircasesex. HSF, for short. Did I mention that it’s hot?

Episode Summary

Kazuya sexes Kyoushiro, USSR, Himeko, and Apron-kun get pwned, Chikane is hot, Kyoushiro… uh… here, let’s put his thoughts into a song by Tom Petty:

“I wanna free-fall… out into NOTHING! I wanna leave… this… world for a while!”

And so ends the episode.

Thoughts

The only way for Chikane to have been even hotter this episode is to, instead of having said “yes” to Mejingjord, having said, “I have given my life for her, and she for me, and we will continue to, for we are the priestesses of the sword.” Well, even without TOTALLY OWNING with a direct KnM reference, she manages to be pretty damn cool. Parts of what she says tie into her last words to Himeko in KnM; she isn’t ashamed of her feelings, she won’t run, she won’t hide, she can tell them to anyone, and she will protect them.

If only this show had more focus on Chikane and her character mattered at all, the show might be good. A major problem with Setsuna/Kuu/Kyoushiro is that they are flat, whereas Chikane, who was the strongest main character of KnM (and, in my humble opinion, one of the strongest anime characters across the board), is well-developed, and… has a character.

I hear people enjoying the show, some for reasons that for me are reasons to dislike it, and some for what I believe are shallow reasons: a friend of mine likes it for the seiyuu. The main reason that I dislike this show isn’t the poor animation quality. It’s not even the crappy premise… KnM proved to us that “priestesses saving the world with robots” could work. It’s that the “empty” (thanks, Kuu) characters and unbelievably bad execution combined make me think “wtflol” at every point along the way. That’s not how anime should be… comedy even shouldn’t be “wtflol.” It should leave you with some clue of why you’re laughing.

This, a more or less serious romance-drama, makes me think “wtflol” and that’s a major mark against it.

Thoughts for the last episode?

I’m going to watch it soon (have it downloaded already) and blog it. I’m making no predictions. All I know is I want something for Chikane and Himeko other than “a brief scene where [they] reunite and bid farewell.”

Thoughts on the show as a whole through this point?

TedFox puts it quite well: “bla bla…”

(Oh, and I apologize for a lack of screenshots. There were too many awesome moments for me to capture, my brain overloaded, and my fingers went numb.)