Ah, okay. Sorry for the little misunderstanding after the previous episode. According to this link here at MyAnimeList, it seems that the director changed after episode 9, while the chief animation director got replaced at the end of may, so probably around episode 17 or 18. Last episode simply seemed to have been the victim of a bad case of outsourcing.
Then at the same time, I did have my worries about the change of directors, especially since the previous two episodes really weren’t as good as the rest of this season. Thankfully, this episode showed that the new director most definitely understands the series he’s working with. This episode had everything that made this such a fun series to begin with: very fun action scenes, every single member of the main cast has his own story progressed a bit, and the themes of fandom finally return again in their brilliance. The only point at which you can really see that the directors have changed is the opponents that Basquash had to fight in this episode: they weren’t opponents, they were typical shounen enemies whose can only rely on one strategy.
But really, I don’t really care, since this episode and especially that fight was incredibly fun. The idea of running around with fake balls, changing your own hair color (in the most painfully bright colors), while letting the real ball slowly roll towards the target is so stupid, yet brilliant at the same time. I also loved how the creators treated this match as a kind of mini-episode inside an episode, complete with its own OP, ED, next-episode preview and even commercials! Add to that a crazy announcer with DJ-glasses (literally) and you have an awesome first half of this episode.
And in contrast, the second half of this episode was really the complete opposite of all the madness in the first half. In there, it was time for extra depth for most of the characters. Especially Iceman’s story is nowhere near finished it seems, and Sera also had her share of attention, since the tournament they’re currently playing in takes place in her hometown. My only complaint was Coco: while she did appear in this episode, she didn’t appear enough. ^^;
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Very weirdly paced, and yet it’s a really fun episode.
Er, Shin Itagaki wasn’t replaced after episode 9. He has done his job of supervising the storyboards up to episode 16 – so if you feel any change before that, it isn’t caused by a change in the staff at all. The director at this point is still the same. Other members of the staff left right after Itagaki was fired, by the way.
Now that these details have been cleared up, all the people who were behind these two short episodes have to be praised. The commercials were especially hilarious – I didn’t think Basquash could make me smile so much.
I was so impressed by this episode. Those interesting little unpredictable elements, exactly why I love Basquash.
And i’m not sure if it’s just me, but was anyone else kind of reminded of Oh! Edo Rocket with this episode? Parts of it really felt similar to me in tone and style of O!E.R. Particularly the more silly, comedic first ‘mini-episode’. And more specifically, the guy with the DJ glasses brought Tetsuju the Fuse to mind.
But anyways, yeah, great episode that seems to have renewed the faith of some in this series, myself included.
Some of the characters discussions in the 2nd part felt very genuine. I mean, it didn’t feel forced as it sometimes does. Alan/Flora speaking with Coco for example, just felt very natural and confortable. Like the 2 characters should be talking to each other as opposed to merely fulfilling some kind of plot device or function. Similarly with Falcon and Iceman. It just felt like character interaction was very maturely dealt with in a series which more often than not takes the silly route. Really showed off the range that Basquash can have as a series.