What They Say:
Three girls in the manga club, Ai, Mai, and Mii, battle with evil Earth invaders, face off against rivals in tournaments, and might not actually draw any manga.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With hints of what looked like a plot last week in an episode that didn’t have any of our characters in it, this episode gets us moving into a bit of action from the start with a cute prologue as the girls do some sports-fighting. Uniforms always get fans behind the show, right? The rest of it goes for what the show is best known for in its first season by providing a lot of random jokes, gags and parodies. With playground fun, giant Mi monster attacks and other dreamlike sequences, it’s pretty much gag upon gag. Even the whole licking gag gets used here in a longer form than usual, which is pretty disturbing since it gets pretty bloody. It’s all the usual stuff once again, including spending the last 15 seconds or so advertising their manga properties.
In Summary:
Ai Mai Mi at least brings in the main cast for this episode and we get the same kind of frantic, frenetic and hyperactive comedy that dominated the first season. It shifts quickly from one gag to the next so that even if you do find one amusing, it’s already moved past it – if not another one already – and is doing its best to get to a third one. There are some amusing bits and visuals in it, but as a whole it just lacks what it needs to pull it all together in a strong way. The advertising doesn’t help either.
Grade: D
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
