Aah, finally! Finally we have an actually good parody of the romantic comedy. Even without the awesome twist at the end, I just loved what this episode did and how it poked fun at the genre and how it made everything look ridiculous with its ever-sharp wit. There also was a lot of building up in this episode, but in the end, it was totally worth it. This is really what an awesome comedy should be: don’t just show a bunch of random jokes, but have everything build up for each other and create a whole picture that’s larger than the sum of its parts.
The interesting thing is how this was written more than a decade ago, and the things it parodies still are incredibly overused, and it just showed how timeless this episode was. I also love how there finally is a series that acknowledges that love at first sight is pretty implausible, and how it takes this to the absurd by putting the fate of the world hanging on it. The inclusion of Kraft only made this better: his energy and sarcasm were awesome to watch during the building-up parts.
Not to mention the awesome excuse that the creators found in order to leave Ouji uninvolved in this episode. The different combinations of characters for each arc are really dynamic here and instead of overexposing the same characters, the creators really try to give all kinds of characters their own time to shine, going both for the main characters as the new ones that it introduces. And again, the characters in this arc are fairly simple, and make writing good characters look so easy.
The revelation that the lead guy was basically a lesbian was the highlight of this episode. It gave a completely different meaning to the episode, plus it also left a very interesting cliff-hanger for the next episode, which just has to be different from the previous. But then again, this series has shown before that it loves to toy with expectations.
Also, this all took place at a Ski Resort. Take that, hot spring beach school festival pool episodes!
Rating: *** (Awesome)
Your final comment makes me laugh!
I’ve been looking forward to this one BECAUSE of how Kraft is involved. There was a lot added to the original, and I loved it all. That it WAS put in a ski resort was one of the best additions – it provided more of a setting and a reason for why the heck Kraft and crew had the aliens in such a place. And yes, it was much better than a beach!
Great review as always! As a fan of the manga I really enjoyed the original additions to this episode. The only thing that made me cringe was the random insertion of a cross-dressing Craft to explain the demise of future males’ infertility. That’s just stupid..
Argh. That should be “fertility”.
This is the best comedy EVER! I wish it would go on for another season
The part where they talk in the lobby had me tearing up… “Captain! That is so incredibly cliche! But… All is good”
Kraft alone makes the ep actually… No words really, 10/10 so far
I kind of felt this was one of the weaker arcs in the manga (I’m a big Color Rangers fan…) but since I know what was going on, I spent the whole episode laughing for some reason. Kraft really makes episodes better, since he’s so over the top cynical.
It really is sad that the show/manga was so short though. The mangaka’s other works (Hunter x Hunter and Yu Yu Hakusho) are really more stereotypical shounen fare (and because of his illness, I doubt HxH will ever finish). Not that it’s bad – at least Level E ends before it can jump the shark.
This episode was just okay to me. When Sade showed Kraft something about the princesses love interest, I immediately thought that either the guy was:
1) an alien or
2) a girl
I notice that I have this annoying habit when I watch Level E. As I know that this show just likes to troll its viewers, whenever there is some sort of twist, I subconsciously start to think what sort of twist it would be, and the twist just lost its impact when it is revealed.
Just with how I guessed about the lesbian this episode, I also back in episode 5 immediately called that Tachibana sensei wasn’t a scary alien assassin like Prince described to the kids. I’m not saying it’s the shows fault, but it does somewhat spoil my enjoyment of it a bit.
Kyoko is a transguy and definately NOT a lesbian.
I think Mikihasa is the reason WHY it has to be a ski resort. Cos it’s so cold, you have to go around fully clothed in bulky clothing thus making it very difficult to tell gender apart.
But ya… I still think that the end of first arc is still the best…
Kraft rules! His explanation what Christmas Eve is to the Japanese… LOL
“He” is not a lesbian at all. Remember at the bus what the girl next to him said to her parents: I am going with a girlfriend. She just signed his name as a girl to the hotel. Talk about clever jokes…
Problem for me was the ‘blokes’ voice, you could tell it was a girl from the start on the coach.
Very good episode too, if not for the princess reminding me of the girl from Death Note.
“Also, this all took place at a Ski Resort. Take that, hot spring beach school festival pool episodes!”
I don’t think you need to mention this. Level E isn’t a high school/moe anime.