Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple_R
Excellent episode.
Plot-wise, I admire how carefully detailed and smoothly developed everything has been in this anime so far, and this episode is by no means an exception.
However, one of my concerns after the very fast-paced first episode for this anime is that it would become the romantic comedy/eroge equivalent of the "monster of the week" formula so common in magical girl shows. In other words, instead of a "monster of the week", we'd have a "girl of the week", which for me would really take away from the overall impact of this anime.
By slowing things down a bit and giving each girl some chance to shine, it's made their respective arcs that much more gratifying and rewarding, in my opinion. I particularly found this with Kanon, and I'm confident that I'll find this with Shiori too.
I loved all the internal monologue that we had from Shiori. It really helped to flesh out her character. Her thoughts on books were very compelling and poetic, and is probably the best argument for reading books that I've seen since I watched LeVar Burton's Reading Rainbow as a kid many moons ago. 
Overall, a truly wonderful episode. |
Problem is, the manga
is a girl-of-the-week setup, only the story is well-written enough that it's still able to give every girl their opportunity to shine before sending them on their way out of the picture (some more permanently than others). There's no need to drag out the individual arcs, and if any girls in this season's batch
did need more time, it would have been Ayumi and Mio, who were short-changed in the manga as well; certainly not Kanon and Shiori...
The real stars of the show, though, are Keima, Elsie, and the small band of irregulars (that eventually grows not so small) that
do reappear from arc to arc. It's in many ways the anti-moe series, in that it uses its snarky, genre-savvy lead to poke fun at the very moe archetypes he's made to capture, both overtly and subtly. I'm not supposed to watch this series and go "d'awwwww...", I'm supposed to watch it and either laugh my ass off (sometimes at the expense of those who
do regularly go "d'awwwww") or cheer Keima along in his magnificent (if inconsistent) bastardry and overblown angst at being forced to kiss cute girls.
The anime adaptation is turning this series into something it's not, and that is why it's failing in its pace and in the ratings. Its wrongheaded
execution is excellent nearly without exception, which only makes the lost opportunity more heartbreaking. You don't have to look any farther than a character poll on the author's website, that, even though it was clearly flooded with anime watcher votes, still ended up awarding 2nd place (10 votes behind Elsie) not to a capture arc heroine, but to one of those aforementioned "irregulars", who hasn't even shown up on the anime yet.
Cute girl anime are a dime a dozen. TWGOK is (was?) something special. When will adaptations learn not to stray from perfection...?