Zenckichi’s role becomes clearer in the school, much to his dismay.
What They Say:
Zenkichi has been dubbed “The Club Crasher” after constantly visiting the sports and martial art clubs. The only club he hasn’t crashed is Judo. A request from Nabeshima Nekomi, captain of the Judo Club, suggestion has put Zenkichi on the spot light.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the first two episodes showing off how the relationship between Zenkichi and Medaka works, you know that while Medaka will have a reputation for herself, Zenkichi won’t be free of one either. As she goes about and does her thing, he’ll quickly become the de factor enforcer and viewed as the one who upon arriving at a club or incident will be the one that will either get abused or sucked up to. With two clubs having been dealt with so far, it’s no surprise that he’ll end up dealing with another one, this time the judo club. As we’ve seen so far from the show, the student body here is definitely difficult to live with since there are a few that really abuse the system in a lot of ways, including physically as some are very much of that mindset.
By force is the way a lot of things work for some people and we get that early on here with Kanoya, a student who himself aimed for Medaka’s position by trying to intimidate people into voting for him. What it did instead was to get a lot of the girls to vote in the other direction, so he’s looking to take the position by force from her now with an attempt to turn Zenkichi from her as well. Of course, Medaka is obviously on top of things so it’s just a matter of time until she puts her own plans into effect in order to deal with the threat. It’s not exactly a threat to her power because she enjoys the power but rather a threat because it will slow her from doing the variety of positives that she believes she can accomplish from this position.
With the episode running through a few different things, it has a kind of spastic feel at times as it tries to cover it. We get some time with some of the supporting cast of the show getting a few words in here and there away from Medaka and Zenkichi, but it’s not enough to really make them stand out if you even remember their name. Medaka’s fanservice aspect for the series is still minimal overall, but it does have its brash moments since she’s always in a seeming state of undress at times when Zenkichi comes into her office. When the show finally doe sloop around again to the judo club and its issues, it’s almost an afterthought for the last act here, even if it does let Medaka shine for a bit and brings in most of the action and skin for the show.
In Summary:
As Medaka Box progresses, it’s feeling a bit more unfocused and unsure of where it is that it wants to go. It has some good and fun moments here and there but there isn’t a strong narrative to it at this point. While the show is called Medaka Box, it’s been far more about Zenkichi and even then it’s not really about who he is beyond just being an enforcer for Medaka and going about the school. We do get a better look at how the school is set up, but again it’s just a near-fantastical kind of place with no real definition to it. The show is one that I was definitely looking forward to when it was first announced and because of who was involved, but I feel like I’m waiting for something striking to happen that will let the show really be defined but not expecting it to happen.
Grade: C
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.
