The focus turns to our maiden of doujinshi as her mind spirals out of control into fantasy.
What They Say:
Kanamori has been pushed too far and has mentally broken. Kyoko sets up a magical girl battle to snap her out of it.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While the first episode was kind of spastic in some ways and played to the stereotypes, it did win me over in some minor ways, especially with the whole Saint Seiya parody. The show has the basics here that one would expect with cute girls, a struggling club with a limited number of members and a sense of silliness about it that can work sometimes. There’s something to be said for the self aware nature that it has at times, such as when Kanamori at the start here comes across a cat and does the whole hopeful dream of becoming a Sailo Moon type because of it. It’s the kind of wish fulfillment that many kids go through when they view the world and there is a charm to it, if you open yourself up to it.
While the astronomy club has acquired Itsuki as a new member, they’re still looking to expand a bit and Kyoko takes advantage of Kanamori to do this. It’s rather cute, and full of awkward intense fanservice, as she gets her dressed up in a skimpy Santa Claus outfit to try and draw in new members. You have to admire the attention to detail from the animators in making it as awkwardly sexual as possibly. The show does get a little disturbing at one point though when Itsuki gets to wear the same costume and it just looks awful on him. For Kanamori, she’s just in a whole other place mentally at this point and escaping everything is what she has to do. The view from the others, especially Kyoko, is hilarious as she envisions her as just a flasher, but only in front of cats.
Kanamori’s Sialor Moon fetishism is really amusing as it goes on and it really hit a high note for me when it did the transformation sequence in an eight bit style format, giving us a classic videogame style one that works beautifully. The show does what it pretty much did in the previous episode by giving its focus to the parody once it gets rolling in the second half, complete with the whole “movie magic” reality being shown at times. It parodies the Sialor Moon series really, really well and gives the girls amusing costumes, the right lines and the overall music and feel of it is just spot on. While some shows may do the quick 15 second parody, they go to town with it here and take Kanamori’s doujisnhi fetish and view of the world to a very fun level here, making this a lot of fun to watch. As much as I did enjoy the Saint Seiya parody, this one steps it up even more.
In Summary:
Ebiten is a show that did not win me over in the first episode hugely, but I liked certain aspects of it. Using a lesser known club like astronomy was a plus, but that factors into the show almost in no way here other than a membership drive. The main focus here in this episode is on Kanamori and her being completely spiraled into a Sailor Moon fantasy, something that works really well as a parody since they just have a free and fun style about it. This doesn’t draw you into the characters hardly at all, unfortunately, but it does make for a lot of good if superficial fun. The show was one I was expecting to drop like a stone even more with the second episode, but it’s charms won me over just enough to sample here and there.
Grade: B-
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.
