What They Say:
The FuF Festival is coming up soon and the (fake) Game Creation Club needs to come up with something quick! Can they come up with something other than elemental-based ideas on how to sabotage the opponent?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
D-Frag had some fun in the previous episode as we learned that the Game Creation Club is actually a fake club to some degree. The origin of the club was revealed and some of the interpersonal issues with the original club are simply amusing to watch since there’s certainly reason for some animosity. Caught up in all of it, Kazama just feels kind of blindsided by it all. And now that the festival is coming up, we get more of that as the club that he was forced into is trying to figure out ways to sabotage the other club so that they don’t run into any problems during it. The Kazama, a young man who wanted to have a bit of a bad boy life in high school, is the one that tries to keep them sane and out of trouble just adds to the kinds of silly things that go on here and makes him a fun character to watch.
Because of this, there’s at least an attempt to find out what the other club is doing and that’s just as amusing to watch since they obviously don’t feel threatened in the slightest. And they really have no reason to be since the “fake” club isn’t actually involved in making games for the most part. For Kazama, he actually gets a nice introducing to how games are made during it, though there’s some cute fanservice thrown into it as well that he’s actually oblivious about because of his hairstyle. It’s a weird little quirk but you have to laugh at how it unfolds. Not surprisingly, the fake Game Creation Club is more an exercise in weirdness than anything else and Takao does her best to convince Kazama in a rather natural if slightly forceful way that he’d be better off in their club anyway.
After seeing the porn related board game the fake club comes up with, the second half moves easily into the festival itself, bringing in a number of cute minor characters that are alumni checking out the place and what’s going on. While Takao is all set to lord her victory over everyone, the fake club actually manages to build a huge attraction by doing all sorts of sports rooms outside that draws a huge crowd and lots of visitors. Takao naturally doesn’t feel that’s a fair competition – sports aren’t games in her mind – and there’s the analog/digital issue as well. But it plays out cute and you have to like how Kazama is rather proud of what the club put together. Things do ease down, now that you really feel for any of the characters, but there’s a good sense of fun about everything here.
In Summary:
The festival aspect of the show works out better than I expected since these kinds of things are pretty much standard fare for years now. Putting the competing clubs against each other and having the fake club come up with something unexpected works nicely, even if I do agree with Takao as to what the real meaning of the clubs is all about and that it shouldn’t include what the fake club did. But there are some cute moments along the way that hit the right spot and make you laugh and enjoy the interactions. Kazama still holds his own for the most part but I keep finding Takao the more interesting character of the series overall since she has a lot of different things going on.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: FUNimation
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.
