When Kouki gets separated, it’s time to dig into his past as he fights for his present.
What They Say:
Kouki has been separated from the group by code name: Black White. Black White offers him a deal, while code name: Best Pain attempts to assassinate him.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the show moving forward in its fairly slow manner as it deals with various attacks, things slow down a little bit here. We’ve got some of the usual silliness creeping in with the group as there are personalities that rub up against each other in playful ways that can be misinterpreted from a distance, but it’s just the kind of thing that makes them who they are. Zenkichi is someone who has seen it for quite some time so it doesn’t impact him all that much, but as we see from Kouki, it’s not something he wants to stand around and watch. Which leads him to walking alone for a bit and has him coming across Black White, a curious young woman with bandages over her face and a knife stuck in there. Which is just the start, since he’s also being attacked by someone called Best Pain that’s trying to kill him.
This brief segment is what we needed to launch a flsahback segment that shows us Kouki’s younger days, well, not much younger, in which he was around when Medaka first came to the school. And he himself was someone that was considered pure evil and on his own mission. Amusingly, we also see a younger Zenkichi as well where he doesn’t have his blonde locks and is a hooligan himself, at least until Medaka swoops in and turns him back to the right path. And she intends to do the same to Kouki as well, though she misreads the situation with him to some degree. Or at least in his mind, as we’ve seen that Medaka is someone that has long term objectives and doesn’t mind waiting them out.
While that helps to firm up his background a bit more, and is welcome, the present is a good deal of fun. With him separated, we get him providing the one on one time with Best Pain and Black White as they go at it (sadly, with some further flashbacks interspersed throughout) and it’s fun to see him going aggressive on them considering what they want to do to him. Getting a bit of background on both Best Pain and Black White is no surprise either, as we’ve seen that in the other stories so far, so it hits all the expected benchmarks. And is even a bit more streamlined since there are two characters to deal with. Balancing that with the action and Kouki’s own background makes for a busy episode, but one that still does what it needs to, even if it doesn’t really engage.
In Summary:
Medaka Box Abnormal continues to essentially do what it did in the first season, just in a new setting. The show has a decent cast, I like the general idea about it, but this season so far, six episodes in, is not the major game changer that some seemed to promise would come. I don’t doubt there are big things to come, but at this stage it’s just fleshing out the characters a little more, having a spot of fun and otherwise just going through the motions. Giving an episode over to Kouki certainly is welcome as he needed more background material and I liked seeing the younger Zenkichi and Medaka, but as a whole there doesn’t feel like there’s a lot to take away from this episode of any true significance. Some decent action, some minor fanservice and ho hum until the next episode.
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.