The fairies finally get to star in an episode of their show. As we’re past the halfway point, it’s about time.
What They Say
The Fairies want more sweets and will do anything to get it.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I was pleasantly surprised that my wish for a fairy-centric episode was granted this week. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm is diminished a bit due to the series light novel origins coming to the forefront in a most obnoxious way.
Fairies like sweets, as has been established. Watashi gives the fairies a bucket of candy, and the greedy monsters wish for more. Watashi says that sweets are hard to make, and she wishes she had more copies of herself, presumably so she could make sweets for the fairies. The fairies suggest cloning, but Watashi shoots that down as being immoral. But the idea has been planted in their little fairy heads, so they decide to get sweets via the most obnoxious means necessary.
A time loop episode! Not only does this episode crib from Haruhi’s out-of-order chronology (this episode comes before Watashi has met Assistant), but it’s inspired by “Endless Eight” as well. This means we get to watch the same five minutes of action four times over, and pretend we’re grateful about it.
Except the show can’t even seem to get this lazy trick done right, because in one of the time loops, Watashi goes to the cafe to meet Assistant before she sees her Grandfather driving a carriage, and all of the other times, it’s just the opposite.
There are a few good gags here: The fairies playing soccer with a fairy head is nicely creepy, and the fairy experiments with bananas, adding flavor and auto-slipping features in their quest to perfect the time loop, is worth a chuckle.
But the rest of the time we’re stuck with the drearily cynical Watashi, whose persistent oh-so-clever observations are becoming a bore.
In the end, an army of Watashis make sweets for the fairies, and in correcting the time streams, somehow the fairies turn everyone into dogs. This, of course, will hopefully be resolved next week in an episode with 21 minutes of actual new footage, although at this point I’m not at all sanguine about the results.
In Summary
Humanity Has Declined, all right, but not enough for my tastes. We finally have a week without some annoying guest character, but this time we’re stuck with Watashi, and in some way that almost seems worse. At this point, I really just want to see an episode with just the fairies, gloating over the ruins of human civilization, building skinless chickens and suicidal bread robots to fight among themselves. It seems only fair, seeing as they are positioned as the superior species.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: Sony VAIO 17″ HD screen
