Revenge is the name of the game, though maybe some romance may enter into it as well.
What They Say:
Yamato finds himself the target of Kokoro’s rage after the humiliation she faced during the Kawakami Conflict. Yamato uploaded an embarrassing video to the Internet that’s still the talk of the school. Kokoro vows to take revenge on Yamato only to find out she’s getting involved in a little more than she bargained for.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After a surprisingly fun if trashy episode the last time around, Majikoi Oh! ends up being something of a drag this time around as it loses a lot of the fun it has, especially for the first hlf. The episode actually opens well as we see Yamato all excited to check out his new skin magazine that’s all about girls in bloomers, but when he discovers that all the faces in it have been taped over with pictures of Miyako’s face, he freaks out. And of course, Miyako has gotten to his entire stash of smutty magazines and done just that. It’s a bad time for the young man to be sure, especially as he seems quite decided uninterested in Miyako through and through. It’s cute how she’s so totally psycho attached to him, but there isn’t a sliver of real interest emanating from him as some shows are wont to do.
The focus of this episode turns on to Kokoro, who starts off with one issue when it comes to Yamato and then discovers she has even bigger fish to fry. With the events of the Kawakami Match that we saw in the first episode ending as they did, his takedown of her left her feeling really badly about it and holding grudge to say the least. Now that a little time has passed, she’s intent on getting back at him and squaring things when it comes to the way they are between each other. What she learns when she confronts him though, in the midst of a crowd of other students no less, is that during the match he ended up taking some rather amusing video of her where he essentially got to spank her. And he put it out there on the net for everyone to see, which they did, and have on hand at a moment’s notice. Her rage and embarrassment are pretty significant here.
This sets the two at odds for most of the episode, where initially she’s trying to take him down in various ways, including an amusing seduction scene, but it initially turns the other way when he says she’s cute. She turns into a stereotypical girl at this point unfortunately and then tries to shift things the other way by trying to please him and pursue him, even though all she really wants is to have a duel with him to try and regain her honor. When she goes in this direction, it is admittedly cute in a lot of ways as she “girls up” a fair bit which is a contrast from how she is, but it doesn’t feel like it’s right for her character. When she does finally get her duel, that’s more of what’s to be expected and it just reinforced why I didn’t care for her going the other direction for a bit.
In Summary:
After a good bit of fun in the previous episode, this one largely disappointed me with what it did. Kokoro’s not that exciting or fun of a character and dealing with those that are just filled with a lot of anger have a hard time sustaining that kind of energy for an episode without being comical when least needed. She does have some cute moments here and it’s not without its fun, but the only things that really stick with you are the times that deal with Yamato, especially the prologue to the episode with Miyako. While the show can be trashy fun at times, sometimes it just doesn’t work in general and this is another one of those episodes. Which isn’t good since we’re already in the fifth episode and have had two of those already.
Readers Rating: [ratings]
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.