Good amount of Hina in this episode, she had some good scenes. I probably should point out that she ranks about forth on my list of characters for the series, but I still really like her and think she deserves more screen time.
As far as how this episode fit with the rest of the anime, as the topic has been brought up, I would say that it works well as a satire of combat anime series. Although the whole "Butlers that fight" thing is old hat at this point, constructing a tournament adds another level of absurdity to the whole situation. I have long been of the opinion that if you want to use absurdity as the basis for comedy, then you need to have someone take the absurdity seriously. The Superintendent and her tournament does just that.
And here I am pontificating about the importance and subtlety of comedy. I think I may be channeling Sakuya. Well, nothing wrong with that, I guess. Sakuya is amazing
, but sorely missing from this episode.
On another note, the new OP is alright and the new ED sort of irks me. The new OP doesn't have enough Sakuya, and the new ED only has Nagi. Now, Nagi is great and all...but there are other characters in the series (Like Sakuya, Isumi, and Hingiku). The strength of the old EDs was that they featured all the characters in some form or another. Everyone got to see their favorite characters, and there was still a sense of the scenes being in-character for everyone. Nothing against Nagi, but I feel a bit uncomfortable watching the cutesy skipping through the forest thing with the super cutesy music.
Fansubber
