Undercover and in a maid uniform, Aria gets down to business while Kinji just ogles her.
What They Say:
Kinji and Aria arrive at the mansion to kick off operation stealthy butler and charming maid. When a familiar face answers the door, the duo and their ring leader will have to get crafty to reach the rosary.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the series continues and Riko is getting everything in place for her little operation, events move forward that puts Kinji and Aria in Yokohoma City where they get to head to the mansion. After the extensive training that Aria was put through with all the costumes and fun, it’s time to actually put it to the test. They get thrown into things pretty hard from the start though with the costumes they have to wear and the list of things, particularly for Kinji, that the previous butler lists as needing to be done. But the two do still have some time for a little fun, which includes them playing a game of pool together. Which is decidedly dangerous as Aria leans over in all sorts of compromising ways in order to hit the balls.
Little truly happens over the course of the first half of the episode outside of those kinds of events, which are cute and fun as they deal with their job while Sayonaki continues to do his research out of their way. The problem is that where he’s doing the research is where the safe is that they need to get to, so they have to figure out how to lure him out. That means coming up with a plan to do so and Riko has some less than pleasant ideas in Aria’s mind to pull it off, since it mostly involves letting him manhandle her for a bit. You can see the usefulness of it, but she reacts pretty predictably at a time when she and Kinji are both sorting through their feelings for each other as well as they have grown closer. Bringing that into it, even jokingly, is enough to make them both a bit tender about things.
When it does get into the tense and action oriented scenes, the show handles things fairly well here since they didn’t spend much time ramping up on the silly scenes with the music. It is amusing to watch Aria play the cute and slightly ditzy, attentive girl in order to keep Sayonaki outside so Kinji can go through the maze of traps and alarms that are set to protect the safe. It does get kind of annoying with Riko rattling off codes and the like as he does his job, but the two do work well together and Kinji’s style and ability shines through pretty well as they play up the Mission: Impossible aspect of it. It’s not hugely engaging, but it’s mildly interesting and decently animated as it leaves you waiting to see how it’s all going to go to crap quickly as you know the mission can’t be a hundred percent successful.
In Summary:
Considering the build-up in the past episode for what was involved with the mission here, things go off pretty smoothly and there’s little real threat to be had here. It is cute to watch Aria and Kinji play this up as they take on the role of a maid and butler to steal the precious item for Riko, but it’s pretty empty overall. What it always comes down to though is that these two really need to learn to not trust Riko when it comes to anything. The tension moment with the thieving itself is decent but it’s the comedy and character material with Kinji getting all interested in Aria that works the best here, but it’s not enough to carry the episode. As a whole, it’s not bad, but it’s not great either, feeling more like missed potential than anything else and a story cut short that was already too long as it was.
Grade: C+
Simulcast By: FUNimation
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.
