Can the girls survive in a business social situation without crumbling? Or do they draw all eyes to them with their ways and means?
What They Say:
The Sisterhood encounters their super-sexy enemy for the first time, Tsukimi is crushed by jealousy, and Mayaya dresses up like the one and only Nicole Richie!
Content:(please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The lives of those in the Sisterhood continue to be amusing as they have such a slightly off-kilter way of approaching things. When the meeting/presentation comes up for the redevelopment of the area, which means that they’ll lose their building, they treat it as if they’re going off to war and marching to face the enemy. Of course, everything there is very business-like and professional, which means that it’s just as bad as dealing with regular people since they can’t handle it. Contact with the enemy never goes well and it hits an even bigger snag when Shu sees them come in and still can’t make the connection as to who Tsukimi really is. His pursuit of the beautiful version of her has him unable to see the real her.
While we do see these situations in movies and TV shows all the time, I do wonder at it happening in real life and just how easy it is to pass it off. In a way, I expected a little better of Princess Jellyfish with it since it is playing in the real world, but it’s rather easy to accept that Tsukimi looks so radically different as a NEET that Shu is unable to see who she really is since he’s so blinded and smitten by the dolled up version that Kuranosuke created. With Tsukimi not knowing that he can’t tell the difference, the way she acts around him is even cuter since she becomes so withdrawn even as her heart races intensely as she’s come to really like him. That alone is a difficult thing for her to accept and her internal debates over it and analyzing how it feels is adorable. She’s not as bad as some other shows with it, taking it too far to be crippling, but she and the others all face their challenges in this way.
Princess Jellyfish does take some odd turns within the episode though that speaks to its josei origins in that there’s a lot of… talking. Not that talking is bad, but it has the kind of languid pace at times where you suddenly realize the episode is over and wonder what it is that’s happened. Things do progress here as the girls try to figure out how to deal with the redevelopment and the woman that’s taking care of most of it. This adds some new layers to the show with the deals that have to be made and an emphasis on how appearance is important, which does go hand in hand with the idea that it’s what is inside that matters more. The two are not mutually exclusive and there are ways to deal with it. When Kuranosuke goes through a bit of a makeover gig with some of the girls, it does show some very amusing bits, especially with Mayaya. Yet what you really have to take away is that the women are actually open to figuring all of it out, which is a huge step forward for them.
In Summary:
Edging towards the halfway mark, Princess Jellyfish plays up a few different things here as it loosens up some of the women while still showing just how easily paralyzed they can become in various social situations. The redevelopment aspect of the series is picking up the pace a bit, but more so as to put the characters together and start working towards the realization that Shu has to have sooner or later. He’s getting some clues now though, which is good, since if it’s stretched out too much and has too many unbelievable situations, it wears thin and gets old. As it stands, the show is hitting most of the right marks at this point and continues to be fun, but it’s ready to start moving forward in new ways. The mini-makeover session at the end here really helps to start some of that.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
