No trips to the underwear store this time…
What They Say:
Akatsuki attempts to ride the fabled Sleipnir motorcycle. Meanwhile, terrorists strike in the heart of the city, and it’s up to the student council to stop them.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After an episode focused on buying clothes and undergarments, can the show go any lower? Hopefully not as that episode, while it had its moments of fanservice, was definitely a low point for things that you don’t want to see how it can go lower. Thankfully, things get moving in a decent direction here as it works through some basic school related stuff, giving us the kids dealing with tests, doing good and bad and just going through the normal routine. That may not seem like much, but it’s a bump up over what came before and takes us away from that awful fanservice fest that we had.
With a whole lot of empty fluff in the first half, things eventually settle on Kaidou appearing and getting Akatsuki to go with him where the two want to try and ride the Selipnir motorcycle that exists, seemingly somewhat in secret. I feel like I missed something as the motorcycle is key and important because it requires a certain type to ride it, of which Akatsuki’s father was. Which leads to some taunting about whether it’s something that he can actually ride or not. The thing has a lot of power, so much so that when the student council vice president comes to confiscate it, she ends up completely naked because of Akatsuki’s powers with the way it burns them all off of her. It’s a hilarious moment of fanservice that serves absolutely no point.
This is the turning point for the episode as it segues into an act of terrorism that’s occuring in the city. With Peace Eye calling in Babel for help since it’s a situation on the 47th floor of a building in the city, they get to use their special abilities to slide in and attempt to put everything right. With it turning into a hostage situation, it has a good bit of tension as it goes on, but like so much of the first half of the series, there’s still this general lack of reason to care for anyone or anything going on. It continues to paint a picture of things happening just for the sake of happening and Akatsuki being all manly, showing up on the scene when lest expected and showing off in a huge way. Others get their time in the spotlight as well, but it’s just so nonsensical that you wonder what kind of script they’re working off of and who thinks it’s a good idea.
In Summary:
With the series at the halfway mark, I really just continue to cement the belief that I have no clue what the real purpose is here. We got the bit about Miu, why she was saved and so forth, but that’s not carrying the story. What we get here is just plain nonsense. It has its cute moments, it has its sexy moments and on occasion it uses the magical aspect well. But it’s not telling a cohesive or coherent story that engages you. It’s the kind of show where you barely remember who the characters are from frame to frame, never mind episode to episode. It’s surviving at this point for me purely on the fanservice, and even there it went too far such as the previous episode.
Grade: C
Streamed 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.
