Think of this post as a last-episode impression. Naturally, there are spoilers.
The climax of the second series took place right around the 2/3 mark of the 2nd season. There are a series of episodes involving Lan’s brother and the three girls playing princess-house on board the royal star cruiser and it leads into the whole Yurikano thing. We also get an explanation of how things kind of works, and some back story about Yurikano which kind of explains the way the three of them (Yurikano, Villagulio, Dizelmine) are a bit of a foil for Lan, Mugi and Madoka. Unfortunately the three of them feels a bit, well, expired, after that climax. We don’t even know what Yurikano is suppose to do; Dizelmine is reduced to the final boss, and Villagulio played the role of the damsel.
But when we get that whole sequence inside the Rinne, it makes me feel all… Gundam 00-y. It’s like they were able to move people’s hearts by their own, but somehow that communicative gesture (expressed by giant robot battles) translates into some expressive natural phenomenon. Like huge flowers. It’s like Gundam 00’s GN field, but much more fruity and bad-assy, if we substituted people having a memoria with newtype and if the flowers can adjust planets so they don’t run into each other.
The whole Moid thing is pretty Tatsuo Sato-y. I enjoyed it but the way it ended seems anticlimactic, to say the least. But I enjoyed every bit about him in the final episode, it’s just great stuff.
I also wish they’d explain more about the tablet that Madoka’s cousin found. It was sort of a plot device they never bothered to explain because it was not important beyond being a trigger for Moid to go rogue and Dizel to go … diesel.
Man, at least they explained the tablet in Nadesico!
If it isn’t clear, I enjoyed parts of the ending, but overall it feels a bit empty because most of the key emotional themes and plot lines wrapped up in about the 2/3-way point. What was left was the mumbo-jumbo plot/setting stuff, and they couldn’t clean it up all the way. The show did keep up its enjoyable style and writing, but it could’ve been a lot better, I think, even for a 「ã‚ã§ãŸã—ã‚ã§ãŸã—〠end.
PS. Along with Mouretsu Pirates, Sato got the lead girls to sing an image song during an important moment! But the gag is even better here, I think.
September 27th, 2012 at 2:14 am
Honestly they should have gone for the full yuri end. Sales are already terrible so the only thing it could have done was helped.
Still, not bad, if not precisely amazing. Madoka’s no Katou Marika, but as female protagonists go, she’s pretty good.