The first half of this episode was… annoying. Obviously that hot spring was the big blame for this. It’s a good thing that this arc was really trying to tell a story, so that it was just building up for the second half of this series, but it remains obnoxious to see creators grab every chance they can to put female characters in a bath and have some of the unimportant male side-characters talk about peeping.
Overall, I’ll be happy when the focus of this series shifts away from Rikuo’s classmates. At the moment, they’re just too one-sided. The second half of this episode on the contrary was pretty good. That trap felt pretty flimsy in the previous episode, but this episode showed that for whatever reason, Gyuuki made a hard decision here that could cost him his own life. Especially the atmosphere at the end of this episode was quite good, even though it was meant to be an obvious cliff-hanger.
Overall though, after six episodes, I do think that Nurarihyon no Mago lacks the charms of Junji Nishimura’s better works. While I like it much more than Kyou Kara Maou (or what I’ve seen of it anyway), it really lacks the refined characterization that made series as Simoun, Windy Tales and True Tears so memorable. He really seems to be a guy who can get the best out of his series when they’re original stories, instead of following an adaptation. But who knows, I still like Nurarihyon no Mago, and the manga seems solid enuogh in any case.
Rating: (Enjoyable)
Thankfully, this is the last major arc where the King Cross Squad have a big role. They are as useless as they can get.
This episode was so slow passed that I felt tempted to skip it, fortunately the last part was better. Next episode is supposed to be action packed. Hope the producers actually know how to handle it.