When girls clean a boys room, it can’t lead to good things.
What They Say:
The heated battle over Yamato continues, with none of the girls willing to back down. Each of them is willing to go further and further, before inevitably it breaks into open warfare. Yamato, meanwhile, considers exactly what he’s fighting for, but it isn’t too long before Tachibana Takae announces her intent to the public…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the last few episodes focused on the whole Momoyo and Takae fight that dominated things heavily, this episode shifts away from that which is pretty welcome. While some shows can handle the inclusion of darker elements after doing a lot of silly fanservice oriented comedy, some just feel far too forced. By going back to the basics here, putting Yamato back at home and having the numerous girls now realize that they’re all in competition with each other over him, and with Yamato having made nary a hint about where his interests lie, that means it’s time for them all to ramp things up and just get silly in trying to win him over. Or more specifically, outperform the others.
And this can be fun, especially when they screw up trying to get to his room and he’s not even there, causing massive chaos. But that leads to them cleaning up the room which has them discovering all his porn. So much porn. Some are very blase about it which is amusing in itself while others are curious and afraid to find out what he’s into. But at the same time, they want to know more about what he really likes, so it makes sense to try and understand his fetishes and desires. Blushes and all. There’s a lot of looking away, which from my own use of porn as introductions to other people, well, it’s pretty accurate. You get some like Mayu that’s just really keen on it and others that don’t know how to handle it. It’s absurdly cute in how they handle something so basic to life.
Of course, you can’t be without the main serious storyline showing up in here as Takae is intent on taking down everything and she’s got Saki’s “helpful” (sexual) support for it. She makes her brash and bold plan to rally thugs and ruffians to her side since there’s a lot of general unrest to take advantage of and that leads to the expected base level fighting that goes on. Which after a few episodes of Takae throwing down is pretty dull. Running this in parallel with the girls getting their training on and Yamato understanding the scale of the problem that’s coming since there’s a whole “Die Japan!” sentiment being fueled by Takae, it moves back in this direction easily enough. But when you look at the episode and decide which part you enjoy more, you realize that you just want the silly fun and not all this other stuff. Which has been the main problem for a bit now. It’s not horribly done, it’s just uninteresting and now what draws you in.
In Summary:
Majikoi Oh has come a long way from that first episode that played big with the battle sequence and introduced to a lot of characters. Instead of expanding on that, it went for character silliness with some larger themed background bits dropped in that never felt like they fit right and were just forced. When it went big on the humor, it won big. When it spent the last few episodes on action sequences and drama, it drained all the fun and interest out of the series. Here, they’re trying to have it both ways and succeed a little better but it still comes down to the basic problem of the villains being uninteresting and not being able to be enthused about their plans and execution. If they spent the whole episode focusing on the girls checking out his room it would have been vastly more entertaining. And that’s kind of damning.
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.
