Okay… so this show just explored some new depths here.
Shoji Kawamori, Mari Okada, or whoever it was who came up with the idea for this episode: why? Why did you stuff everyone in swimsuits? Why was the ancient aquarion hidden in a lake? Why do people need to take a bath in milk? Why did that milk suddenly become a way to teleport people into mechas. And what on earth was up with all of the banana references? Seriously, with these past episodes this series has made all of the training arcs look completely ridiculous.
This was by far the most sexualyl charged episode so far. And despite some of the really bad twists of which I’m still not sure whether they were pulled on purpose or not, some characters emerged better out of it, while others got even worse. By far the best character in this episode was Andy, with his incredibly awkward freudian mistake. By far the worst was Zessica. This episode pulled the twist that gave her even less of a personality “I’ll love you even if you don’t love me back”. This remains a terrible twist. At least lett her attempt to move on or something. Also, what on earth was up with that new outfit of hers? Who on earth found it a good idea to give her a Queen’s Blade outfit? What on earth was that meant to symbolize?
Rating: * (Good)
The same stuff that plagued the original is here on display. It was filled with these mostly filler episodes that had the most bizarre nonsense going on: from cosplaying as each other to fighting basically a plague of food eating locusts.
However the original also had some strengths in how the characters developed. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Zessica’s development yet. This episode was basically just setting up the stakes and the goals for our villain actually. The mech that appeared is clearly not Altair’s, but directly from Mykage.
We’re at episode 17 now. If this keeps following the lay-out of the original, we should see some more set-up before the endgame of the series. The next episode seems to be more about Zessica. Hopefully she finally figures something out about herself.
I think Zessica wearing that ridiculous dress (oh my God, boobs don’t work that way) is just build-up for the next episode where she seems to have an identity crisis of some sort. After all changing yourself to please a guy isn’t a good idea, but she’s willing to go there for Amata which I guess means she’s more into him than Mikono but then next episode is going to show why that’s a bad idea? Dunno, I just hope I’m not wrong and she gets some good character development.
But yeah, this episode was just… lol. Although in retrospective, it may be a breather between the past two dramatic arcs and the nearing series finale.
That dress is NOT ok. I get where they’re going; it’s like Mikono but with a sexy Zessica edge. But it looks like bad fetish gear. Not cool.
Anyone else noticed how they used Zessica as the mouthpiece for all the weird sexist theories Japan has about women? Men only want women they can protect, ‘maturing’ means acting more demure like Mikono, etc.
“Let’s make a banana episode!”
“We’re already past halfway, shouldn’t we move the plot a little after all the procrastination?”
“Plot? What are you talking about?”
“This thing about the other world and all the reincarnation stuff.”
“No one cares about those details, bananas will do.”
“There’s still the issue about Zessica’s recent development…”
“Just tell the designer to make her a new revealing outfit, that will please the fans. And don’t forget the bananas.”
Hahaha XD Yeah, that’s probably what went down in their minds.
I think the scenery itself was well thought because you can actually see that it is where the academy in the first series was. I believe the holes guy actually fell on part of the old aquarion hangar.