The rumble on the roof is closer to getting underway. Almost…. there…
What They Say:
The top of Ishiyama duke it out with the 6 Holy Knights on the roof! Miki explains how he looked up to Oga back in middle school, and now wants to prove that he’s surpassed him with his powerful punching, but before they can settle things the final 2 of the 6 Holy Knights show up, and call off the battle. The next day, Oga and the gang are all set to be expelled!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the current arc involving the 6 Holy Knights, I can’t say I’m completely sold on them at this point since it hasn’t exactly clicked. It’s a fun arc in general when you look at it by having this high end secret group of ruffians within the academy that’s generally unknown to most people. And they had fun with it in the previous episode with the pins they wear and how Oga and the others did their best to figure out who is a part of it. And it got into a pretty decent fight that got rolling by working with Miki, who as it turns out has a connection to Oga from the past that Oga is of course pretty oblivious about. Those kinds of things aren’t a surprise and you can easily place them in the realm of the possible without stretching much imagination.
Because of the nature of this episode, the bulk of it is focused n the back and forth that goes on between Oga and Miki, though not without a few interruptions. Aoi gets involved accidentally at first and she realizes that it’s completely inappropriate to do so because of what’s involved between these two young men. Even Beel is feeling wary about the whole thing and is getting agitated no matter how much Aoi tells him to believe in Oga. The use of Kanzaki for a brief scene is pretty appropriate as well since it has him trying to do what he thinks is the right thing but ends up getting smacked around a whole lot. There’s a good build up to all of it as the two men get to fighting, but the problems also comes from the fact that there is almost half an episode of buildup to it. And then it gets paused in a way because of Izuma’s arrival as Miki is going too far with what he’s doing.
What throws things into more disarray after Izuma’s arrival is that of Tojo who has decided he’ll fight everyone, including Oga. Though that’s just a mistake on his part, but it does lead to a good moment as a few blows are traded that in the end lets each side size each other up just a little bit. And puts fear into the spectators with just how powerful some of these guys really are. Thankfully, it doesn’t spend all of its time on the fight as things do mellow out a bit but the whole thing is a big opportunity for those in power to expel everyone because of what happened. Considering the warnings they had, you really can’t be surprised, but I loved that Beel was the one who gives him a real complaint (even though the guidance counselor doesn’t want to hear a lick of it from him).
In Summary:
There’s some fun wrangling going on here at the end with things, but most of the episode is made up of the tense moments dealing with the fight that’s going on and some minor back story for Miki. The action has more tension to it than actual blows, but it does have a few tossed around after a bit and it works nicely to give us what’s essentially a glimpse of what’s possible. It’s unfortunate that there’s no real follow through here, but we’re getting more of the pieces of the puzzle than anything else when it comes to the players involved and at least we’re not having one fight run for multiple episodes. The show can strike a good balance between its various elements, but this one is mostly serious and the few comedic moments can’t help to bring that balance unfortunately.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
