What They Say:
As Black Rabbit explains the situation to Izayoi, the girls meet with a representative of Fores Garo and make their first enemy.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After a strange opening episode that focused heavily on the gameplay mechanics of this world, making it an awkward place to participate in, Problem Children didn’t do much to win me over. It had some decent designs here and there and the lead characters have some curious aspects to them that could draw me back depending on how they’re presented over the next few episodes. And some aspects of it just had some really nice animation, though it’s the opening sequence that manages to win me over the most. With a lot of shows doing characters in gaming worlds these days, it’s definitely lost its allure and I do find myself wanting something more substantial to be dealt with, which Problem Children doesn’t look like it’s going to be.
This episode doesn’t get off to a great start as it’s more information dumping going on as Black Rabbit is tricked a bit by Izayoi into revealing some of the problems of the community that she belongs to and the things that they’re facing. While she regrets what she did, her revealing the truth at least gets Izayoi firmly onto her side as he likes a challenge. What will make things worse though is what’s going on back in town at Little Garden as we see how the girls are dealing with the representative from another community, Fores Garo, who are trying to woo them over to their side. They’re pretty casual in how they listen to him at first and then get dismissive of him, which sets him off surprisingly easy. And because of how it plays out, the representative reveals just how their community works, which involves lots of kidnapping and other unsavory deals in order to solidify their position. A little psychic control over the guy goes a long way.
Because of it, the Games begin fairly quickly and it’s amusing to see how Izayoi and Black Rabbit are surprised at how quickly everything escalated while they were away. What it ends up turning into thouhg is that Kasukabe gets to take the lead in the game here, with life at stake of course, as she deals with a griffin for the match, which is pretty nicely animated and designed when in motion. Said griffin puts her through an amusing little trial as she makes it clear that she’ll win by becoming his friend and he makes for a difficult trial for her overall, though it does give us a little clue as to her past. But it’s still not a lot to really define her as a character nor is the match between the two all that impressive when you get down to it. It has a decent moment or two but it generally just leaves you feeling that if this is the extent of things, it’s a pretty weak world of storytelling we’re in for.
In Summary:
Problem Children has definitely been one of the more unusual shows of the season so far and what it introduced in the first episode carries over here. Which isn’t a big positive in my book since it feels oddly disjointed and rather unsure of what kind of story it wants to tell. With our first look at a match between two sides, it’s almost comical when you look at it in retrospect and wonder what level of writing went into coming up with it. The story gives us a little bit on Kasukabe and we get some decent bits with Izayoi and Black Rabbit early on, but a lot of what’s here just feels unfinished and poorly executed. I really don’t know what to expect from this series and after two episodes I still don’t like any of the characters. That’s not a good sign.
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.
