What They Say:
Free from the swamp, the trio must now travel to the belly of the beast to save a new friend.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the three girls having come together in full in the previous episode, and dealing with the icky nature of the swamp and all, they’re now ready to start moving forward a bit. Maybe. With the creature that has surfaced there, which looks all mean and evil, it turns out that she really just wants their help. If they can put some clothes on first. It turns out that she’s been feeling really off as of late, probably related to the other larger world changing events that are going on in the background that is the impetus for this series, and the creature is requesting that the trio and Syrop head into her mouth and down into her belly to figure out what’s going wrong down there. It’s not exactly a fantastic voyage, nor something that the girls are all that eager to deal with ether.
And so the group starts making their way down the various interior tunnels and such of the dragon, though it’s not something they do with any amount of grace as they slip and slide down quite a few of them. There’s a lack of really disturbing material here, which is probably for the best, but it’s amusing how well lit the whole thing is. And the way that Jormungand makes a note of how tasty some of this could be if properly cooked, which causes the dragon no uncertain amount of nervousness at times. And while they’re all in there doing that, the nervous dragon heads to town and conveniently destroys the tavern again, a recurrence that is amusing in its own way. The reason for the visit is what makes it comical though since it’s just an effort to get food into its system so that the girls don’t eat the dragon from the inside out.
The show loses some of its momentum around the halfway mark, but that’s when the silly turns serious and we see the things inside the dragon that’s causing its ill feelings. This brings the show to its action phase, which feels a bit fuller than we’ve had in the previous two episodes as they deal with the icky things inside that are causing all the problems. It’s not exactly well done, and a lot of the CG animation here just looks awful, but there’s a certain cuteness to the way the girls deal with the situation and their abilities. I like the character designs and abilities – and they don’t transform this time either – but there’s such a low rent feeling about it that it’s kind of unnerving at times.
In Summary:
Into the belly of the beast is the main thrust here as the girls dig deep into a really menacing looking dragon in order to help it deal with the problems inside. The trio manage to work together pretty well here, whether it’s being silly or actually fighting against the bad things, and that’s one of the better aspects of it since there’s no real rivalry material in play at the moment. The show wants to run with a simple feeling and it does so in spades, though it’s still hard to figure out who this show is really aimed at. The third episode certainly hasn’t changed my opinion of what’s come so far and there’s a really weird feeling about the series in general that I can’t quite pin down yet.
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.
