Alright Sekai Seifuku. You disappointed me last week, but that episode was apparently not written by the series composer/principal writer, so that’s okay. Your premise is still great and you’re still really funny, so one episode where the only takeaway is “Zvezda’s enemies are the opposite of a family” is perfectly fine. Let’s see what you’ve got this week.
Episode 6
0:07 – Speaking of family. In the dictatorship that’s really just a family, he who cooks dinner is the most indispensable of warriors
0:48 – Cue transfer student?
1:05 – LINE ‘EM UP, KNOCK ‘EM DOWN
1:39 – The moe-est of robots
1:59 – That is one tremendously poorly chosen moustache
3:42 – Schoolgirl OS Copyright Jun Maeda 2014
3:43 – Nice to see them admit anime schoolgirls don’t actually act like human beings
3:47 – Everyone needs time away from their family, Kate
4:19 – The Udo Bride, whose wielder gains the power to bring world…
Oh. Oh, that actually makes sense.
Carry on, Kate
4:24 – Note to other shows: if you want to get back in my good books, making overt Utena parodies is a pretty good way to start
4:31 – This is some high tier bait. Haven’t seen bait this good in a long time
4:51 – She’s like a localized storm front of wacky misunderstandings
5:11 – Like making assumptions about girls who are clearly robots
7:04 – Kate’s dialogue is always so pitch-perfect. Most “child” characters in anime don’t really act like any definable age – they’re either just smaller versions of normal characters or absurdly infantisized. But Kate actually talks and thinks like a kid
7:21 – You’re breaking my heart, chief
8:23 – Sinister grin only made more terrifying by safety fork
9:23 – Oh, this is interesting.
9:46 – Well that’s a brief and ridiculous backstory. Honestly, I don’t find Jimon’s life nearly as interesting as the Zvezda stuff, but I guess we’ll see where they go with this
10:40 – Toast in mouth and everything. She’s committed!
Of course, some of this stuff brings up the same question as last week’s – are winking versions of anime tropes really any fundamentally different from those tropes played straight? Yes, in some ways – obviously they’re drawing humor from the larger context here, where these characters assuming the identities of more generic archetypes is inherently ridiculous and funny both because we know they’re more than that and because it draws attention to how simplistic those tropes are in the first place. But is that terribly valuable? Well, in the context of a comedy, humor is its own reward – but unlike what this show did in the third and fourth episodes, I’d say there’s no greater value to that then the initial laugh. It’s like the argument that Eva is good because it’s a deconstruction – deconstructions aren’t inherently valuable, they are valuable when they use their choices to point to some greater truth.
Incidentally, it might seem like I’m ragging on this show whenever it’s “just being funny,” but I’m really not. I like this show, and if it were a pure comedy the whole way through, I’d enjoy it the whole time and give it a solid 7/10. It’s just that the show also has some more interesting aspirations, and so my frame of evaluation for it basically goes up to a higher tier than I generally apply to comedies. It’s a sign of my actual respect for the show that I expect more from it, but it’s still working fine as “just” a comedy. And it is much, much wittier and more creative than most comedies.
11:52 – I like that this could comprise the entire 12-episode plot of some other show, but here it’s condensed into a montage of interrogating the student council, three buff dudes, and a cat
12:07 – The writing’s just generally classy in this show. Constant little jabs here and there, even when they don’t make full gags out of them
13:21 – WHERE DID THE CAST GO? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?!
13:30 – Interesting that the camera focuses on this character. I assume she’ll come up later
13:33 – Seriously though where are the main characters
14:03 – God damn these characters and their fiendish disguises
15:19 – This happened to me at a wedding once
16:16 – My expression exactly
16:44 – The treasure seekers are pleased by your enthusiasm. Man, this whole sequence is surreal as fuck
16:58 – Dude it’s a recording
18:25 – HOOOOLY SHIIIIIT
19:25 – Yes
19:27 – Ahahaha
20:28 – It’s a joke, but it also works. Her ability to dream big and imagine impossible things with total conviction is her power
22:54 – This ED is so perfect for this show
And Done
Welp, fine episode. Like the first couple – funny and weird and pretty deftly written. Not much more to say – it’d be nice to see part two spark some conflict between Egret and Robin, but far be it from me to guess what direction they’ll be taking this silliness. Adventure ho!
What, nothing on the last minute or so between the ED and the Preview?
Not much to say! Either her lacking a mask or her not being on call at home are gonna cause some trouble, but either way, they were mainly just setting up the pieces for the second half.
I almost didn’t recognize Natasha because she was wearing clothes.
Pretty great that the only half-effective disguise is one of the characters actually dressing like a normal person.
Did you get the feeling that this show is getting a little disjointed in how they’re jumping around a bit. After the Natasha episode I expected us to get the rest of the back story revealed and eventually onto a bigger plot (which Kill la Kill FINALLY got it kicking). Now it’s just the wacky adventures of Kate and friends and I would like it to kind of go somewhere. While it’s fun, fingers crossed on it getting to a point soon. Oh and I’m not all that thrilled with the comedy presented sometimes where they go oh hey this is a trope in other animes! Get it? Huh huhhh? It’s not a joke. Good comedy would poke at these things while actually doing something with them (see Hot Fuzz, Shawn of the Dead, Archer). The last episode which started with the female do-gooder sitting on Jimon’s face was a huge face palm.
The creators have said the show will be largely episodic, but it’s quite possible this current two-parter will be leading into some actual development. But it may very well just be vignettes the whole way through – we still have no backstory on the sword-girl, and Kate herself is pretty much a mystery too.
Agreed. Winking obvious humor is still obvious humor, and good comedies use their jokes to do more.
No arguments here. That was a serious low point.
I am glad I wasn’t the only one to catch the Utena references here. But this anime is mostly a disappointment for me. I don’t hate it and it still makes me laugh occasionally (most notably, in this episode: the arrival of Roboko in schoolgirl mode, the “running with the toast in your mouth” scene, and that part where they mention “a chairman or a shadow student council”), but it feels like it could have been much better. Episode 3 had a brand of dark humour that I liked way more than this, but it seems like it was just a lucky shot. Oh well.
Yeah, I feel episodes 3 and 4 were a fair distance above the others, and have been somewhat disappointed since. Hopefully we get more than just wacky comedy going forward.