Eh. This remains Xebec, unfortunately. I’m glad that next season they will end up animating something as manly as Yamato (it had better not be just a recap!). This episode brought back the shameless fanservice unfortunately, and overall only was interesting because of how it completed the bonding between the three main characters, something we knew was about to happen.
With those boob groping scenes, I just can’t help but think back to that parody that B Gata H Kei had in it once, where they showed what the male version of that would be like. Yeah. I would know this, but do females really randomly get naked and grope each other when there are no males around? And okay, if the fanservice was creative I would not have minded. But this was the same stuff we see everywhere.
In any case, there sure are a lot of building up episodes this week, which doesn’t make it the most interesting in terms of anime. The trick with building up is to remain interesting, and Muginami’s backstory just wasn’t interesting enough for that, unfortunately.
Rating: – (Disappointing)
Balanced cast > All-girls cast.
Two series proved my point these past few seasons. LE Fam and now, Rinne.
Madoka is fucking getting on my nervers too. But the last 2 episodes were great, so I absolutely won’t drop this.
have to agree about the pointless fanservice this time. Blatantly obvious. I really wish this was a more “epic” show, I want more shows like crest of the stars, a space opera that’s actually has a lot of “slice of life”…
wayy to few shows like those these days.
I second crest of the starts. If we could ever get something similar to it again….
That was an extremely awesome anime.
The writer covers that in Mouretsu Pirates.
Very true, MP is definitely a favorite of mine.
Madoka become my favori main lead of the season, she is confident, badass, sweet, funny and etc
An apparently strong distaste for any nudity is clearly biasing your opinion.
He gave perfectly good reasons for disliking the fanservice in this episode. It’s not about nudity, per se, it’s also about the context that it’s placed in. And I agree with pgsels, the fanservice/nudity in this episode was overly blatant, pretty silly, and over-the-top.
The clear bias I see is from some anime fans who actually seem to watch anime JUST for the fanservice, and hence don’t realize that there is such a thing as poorly-executed fanservice that clashes nastily with everything else in the anime/anime episode.
If you were just talking about the eel catching scene I would agree with you, but the skinny dipping was not the same caliber as say a shower scene for the sake of a shower scene.
Trust me, those fan services are required, pretty much to compensate for other too heavy material…
Not to make those things unimportant, but to keep the show light hearted without removing those struggle in their heart…
Pretty much the obvious last Bath scene when everyone is take their clothes off, it to symbolize that they no longer keep secret from one another now that they are family…
Please, not because the girls are naked then it is decrease the value…
Even the great David statue is naked but nobody find it distract its value…
Yeah I have to agree with Longhaul here. I read this review before watching the episode, so I thought it was going to much worse than it was. Instead, I saw a low-key episode that was very important for character development and had a bit of fairly reasonable fan-service that actually linked in quite well with the character relations. I would have rated it good at least.
No, it didn’t link in “quite well” with character relations. It was silly and over-the-top. How many real life teenage girls would actually bath naked with another teenage girl in a small hot tub, when they barely know that other teenage girl and are just friends with her at best? Do real life teenage girls randomly get naked and grope each other like there’s nothing to it at all?
This is blatant, silly pandering. I’m totally with pgsels on this, and the fanservice in this episode was not “fairly reasonable” at all.
Meh, I don’t know. You could be right about the whole bathtub thing, but skinny-dipping is more common than you think, especially in rural areas. I didn’t find it out the realm of possibilities.
I’ve seen much worse in terms of blatant fan-service pandering – much much worse.
Now I’m not saying it was GOOD mind you, but for me it didn’t make the episode overall “disappointing”
Japanese women are much more comfortable with their bodies than those from Judeo-Christian civilization. It is common for two women who had established themselves as friends to bath together. I mean seriously hotsprings are uninhibited to this effect. Yes, there was fanservice, but it was hardly blatant. I didn’t see any cameltoe, nor did I see any exaggerated breast movement (or any breast movement to that effect. There was no sex play in the bath scene. The breast groping skit was hardly 4 seconds long and was not sexy to any extent. I mean, even the last scene where they were naked at the beach came across as completely natural (ok, not exactly NATURAL, but it didn’t come across as a contrived attempt to give otakus boners either) If guys were the ones to dance naked in the ocean instead of girls, it wouldn’t be immediately declared as fanservice, now would it? It would be male-bonding in the most vulnerable state of physical life.
Actually, it WOULD be declared fanservice. For girls.
I didn’t particularly mind the skinny dipping part, that at least made sense, but the eel catching in the pool, that was just BAD. Seriously it’s like the executives said, ‘OK lets add a simulated tentacle rape scene’ and they just threw it in at a random place. That scene was completely unnecessary story wise.
I agree with you completely. The skinny dipping was fine, but the eel catching scene was just… UGH
Seconded .. the episode as a whole focus on character development .. the fan-service was only for few seconds here and there .. i don’t know why Psgels felt the need to bring it up in such way … i almost thought i’m going to watch a brainless fan-service infested episode .. but i was pleasantly surprised that wasn’t the case at all XD
“but do females really randomly get naked and grope each other when there are no males around?”
In Japan yes (Im serious, I live here) hell they do it MORE when men are around, usually in some kind of club drinking setting, its just another weird Japanese thing. You gotta remember Japan is like outside the realm of normality.
and zo. . .no you are totally wrong about that. . . its more the opposite. ESPECIALLY when it comes to exposing your shoulders in public zo its totally cool if you like the fan service even if other dont. . .but really, you have NO idea what you are talking about with the judeo christian b.s. you mouthed off. I’m not gonna go into it as it will be a book in length of useless eduacation. just come to Japan and live here for more than a year, and you’ll figure it out.
“I would know this, but do females really randomly get naked and grope each other when there are no males around?” Speaking as an American female, nooooooope! We’re much more likely to start making the most perverted jokes possible, there would have to be some serious alcohol involved for stripping to occur.
I was willing to give this a pass during the first half of the episode (as contrived for tears as it was). But the second half was just barf-worthy. And I’m not talking about the fanservice.
They clearly aren’t confident in this show if they’re throwing in such paper-thin fanservice, but if there are people willing to cite true art like the statue of David in it’s defense, then clearly they accomplished their goal of pandering.
But the writing here was so godawful it almost made me barf. Is Madoka an 8 year old or a highschooler? Because I can’t tell.. she swings between one extreme and the other.. emotionally stunted child and hyper-competent athletic teenager.
And the less said about the “you’re family” scene the better. It have had held some weight and gravitas after spending a dozen episodes developing a bond between these people, but come on.. they barely know each other. Way to jump the shark and ruin a great moment down-the-line for an insincere tear-fest now.
Psgels … why focus on mentioning the fanservice when the episode actually wasn’t really about fan-service at all .. yeah there where few titillating scenes here and there but nothing i’d really call fanservice.
The first bathing scene isn’t fanservice and actually is more about character development .. and the breast groping scene in the end was actually funny and a sign the characters are back to getting along with each other (where are those breast groping scenes .. it was only one scene .. and they didn’t go naked and grope each other .. those were two completely different situations).
Even the stripping naked and taking a bath in the ocean at the end is pretty normal (never head of nudist beaches?).. the only titillating part was the slow-mo while the girls where splashing each other .. that lasted for 5 seconds at best .. why call this a fan-service episode and ignore all the flashbacks and character development is beyond me … and it wasn’t just about Muginami’s backstory (which linked to Lan’s backstory) .. but more about the three of them getting back together after what happened in the previous episode !!!!!!
I’m personally dropping this show. Not enough has happened yet to keep my attention (finishing ep 6 atm). I care so little about the 3rd female character. Defending the guy that was just abusing her was so ciche. Combine this with juvenile envy/drama between her and the the other supporting female character put me over the edge.
As far as the mech action? Super vanilla and middle of the road. There was no scene of scale or that epic feeling that you want associated with a mech battle.
I’m going to keep High School DxD over this show; at least it has nipples. It’s cast of ladies is so much less annoying than what we have here
I like this series a lot. Very nice art, pretty good characters and an interesting setting. This is one of the few series where it feels like I could root for practically everyone in the cast, including the so-called antagonists, with a one or two exceptions. (Eg. That ever smiling guy who orgasmed over the Rinne blossoming.)
I’m not sure what the fuss is about regarding the fan-service. Maybe I’ve already been exposed to so much worse that this feels like nothing but innocent girl bonding. XD Seriously, I can stomach this a lot more easily than random schoolgirls turning to crystal and shattering, begging for their lives or whatever crap some of you guys drool over in Another, Blood-C or Shiki.
About the “abuse” scene, please tell me that you guys can clearly see Villagillio did that to force Mugi to leave him and his organization so she can live happily with Madoka and the others, just like she said she wanted to a few minutes ago in the convo.
“I would know this, but do females really randomly get naked and grope each other when there are no males around?” (psgels)
tktym has stated that this is “normal” in Japan. I can’t speak to that, but I’d just like to put a hand up for what seems to be the girls of every *other* country in the world.
I feel reasonably qualified to comment on this. I didn’t just attend an all-girls high school. I didn’t even just attend an all-girls *Catholic* high school. I attended an all-girls Catholic *boarding* high school! I think that ticks nearly every criterion for the worst examples of this trope! 🙂 And I can confidently say that this trope is either, a) completely false and nothing more than cringe-inducing pandering to the loser fan-boy/girl segment of the viewing audience, or b) an indication that Japanese school girls in Japan are *incredibly* different to school girls in other countries.
Just FWIW :).