What They Say:
Kazama gets kidnapped… again. It’s up to the Game Creation Club (Provisional) to rescue “Princess Pinch” once more. But perilous (and stinky) hardships await them on the journey to where he’s being kept!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Having spent some time with Kazama’s sister in the previous episode, which made for some cute girls moments together, the show didn’t do so well by Kazama himself. Not surprisingly, those that know him are wondering why he’s in such a club as it makes no sense. And as we saw from Kazama from the start of the series, he wanted a kind of thug life for his high school career more than anything else, but being in the Game Creation Club (Provisional) is pretty much the polar opposite of that life. And as we’ve seen with him, he doesn’t really have what it takes to lead that kind of thug life with the way he’s been kidnapped before. So throwing another kidnapping at him in this episode just reinforces that idea that he’s a pretty average guy who wants a bad boy image to build himself up.
Kazama’s been taken in by a third year named Tama who has a bit of history with one of the girls in the club and she basically issues a simple challenge to them to come and get him. Which is treated with a bit of disdain, but mostly the idea that they have to do something before things get worse. While they begin their motions, we get to meet those that are working with Tama and it’s all pretty simple stuff since they did the whole thing just to lure the club here. Kazama is an eternal hostage in a way it seems. There’s a few issues that have to deal with Kazama himself as one of them is upset about the recent competition, but a lot of what we get here is just Tama’s issues with the club itself, which seemingly everyone in this school has to some level, so that admittedly falls a bit flat for me, regardless of the characters involved.
The show does have some cute “action” sequences, especially involving the simplistic robot that’s used to deal with the Game Club, but a lot of it is spent with Tama and Kazama talking, with Tama doing most of the talking until Kazama realizes who she is from his past. With it being pretty pointless overall and mostly goes back to a kind of nonsensical rivalry, that just leaves the show to do weird and silly things, including a hilarious barfing moment that’s done a few times over the episode, though one has them barfing flowers as a kind of self comical censor. The whole thing goes for a silly mix of comedy and montage moments as it brings up past events, ways to resolve things and just a lot of silliness in general, which is decent but again doesn’t do much to really draw you into the cast at all. And at this point, adding more characters is the last thing this series needed to do since it feels even more crowded without the core cast getting enough time to really be personalized.
In Summary:
D-Frag once again goes for the basic comedy with some slapstick thrown in and a few references here and there. With Kazama once again being a kidnap victim, there is fun there in look at the way the character has not had a good run in the show and is definitely not living up to his initial dream upon coming to highschool. There’s some fun elements to explore with that, but that’s not the focus of the show. I continue to find amusing moments throughout with some of the gags and some of the physical comedy, but for the most part the show just hasn’t engaged well enough with the characters outside of Takao and Kazama to make those stories work well, this one included.
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.
