Artwork and animation were both a bit better this episode. At the very least, I didn't notice much to criticize about it; nowhere near as much as I did last episode. Haruhi looked much closer to her 2006 self here, and in fact had many nice shots. She still looked K-Onified about 25% of the time, but that's
a lot better than many episodes this season. The rest of the cast were exceptionally well-animated and positioned. Kyon, Itsuki, Mikuru, and Yuki simply all
felt right this episode.
Haruhi conveyed, in art/animation; voice acting; and dialogue; the playful but bossy villainous overlord role quite nicely in this episode. This is precisely how I like to view her.
This is probably the best episode of the year thus far. I'll try to put a more detailed review up on my blog later today, but this is a solid episode - not much to poke fun at here, which is great for everything
except trying to make a comedic review of it of course.
This is a 9/10 for me - very close to 10/10, and losing that purely for artwork/animation issues, same as Kaisos.