Subculture Anime Blog

PEWPEWLAZERS!

Summary:

On the day of Tanabata, Kafuka compliments Chiri’s pretty yukata. When Nozomu shows up, he compliments Chiri’s cell phone strap and hairpin instead. This angers Chiri, but Nozomu implies that humans will tend to notice other things rather than what is meant to be presented. After giving a few examples, he notices a man’s strange shirt during the report of an incident on TV. Because of this, he does not know what the actual report was about. Chiri believes that she has had the same experience, as she was more concerned about the actual situation in a language book rather than what was being taught. Abiru shows up as well, telling the group about how she was more concerned about the picture on someone’s shirt at a funeral rather than the death. When Nami appears to give her example, the group finds that it is normal.

Aliens begin attacking the city that Nozomu and the students are in. Nozomu despairs, but Ikkyu shows up with a plan to find a weapon to use against the invaders. After the aliens observe a few places on earth, they start sending more mecha into the city. The girls finally find the weapon after digging for awhile, in the form of a stone mask. Chiri decides to put it on, making her grow to an enormous size. She begins taking out all of the invading robots, successfully winning the battle by the end. Nozomu and Ikkyu were too distracted by other things, however, so they did not remember any of the important details.

Kafuka finds Kudo in the library, reaffirming that he really enjoys reading books. When Kudo expresses all the things he would like to read, Nozomu fears that he will read the thoughts he has in his heart. Kudo suggests that Nozomu read a book, but when he does, he suspects that Kudo is learning many secrets through them. Nozomu again fears that Kudo is reading his mind, and attempts to block him out. He runs desperately after seemingly failing, passing by Kafuka. Believing that she has a good suggestion for Nozomu, she states that his heart will not be read if he does not have one. She then begins suggesting many heartless things for him to do. This makes Kudo recall a story about a heartless king, which puts Nozomu to tears after hearing it. Kafuka explains Kudo’s talent for storytelling, as he continues to tell many stories for the class around him. With everyone in tears, Nozomu again believes that Kudo is able to read his heart. Running away again, Nozomu makes more preparations to prevent Kudo from reading this heart.

Majiru meets Kiri to give her a package. Inside is a swimsuit that Kiri has ordered. Majiru wonders why she needs one when she never goes outside, but Kiri expresses that she wanted to wear one anyways. Kiri tells Majiru not to look while she changes, but Majiru cannot resist glancing over. Kiri takes Majiru’s glasses from him, then showing herself in her swimsuit. Of course, he was not able to see any of this. Chiri talks to Majiru about several pointless things while watching TV in the room with him, wondering if he really wanted to see her in the swimsuit. Majiru continues to deny this. Kiri then plays a game with Majiru where he should guess which part of her is the front with her hair covering all of her head. Outside, Maria notices how pointless the conversation inside is.

Impression:

Hahaha! This had to be the best episode yet. If you’ve ever wondered what Shaft could do if they made a mecha anime, this would probably be it. The first half of the episode was an absolute riot, and it seemed like they parodied almost every mecha anime I can think of. There was definitely several Gundam refferences, Gurren, and even Transformers. Chiri’s shining finger almost had me falling out of my chair. I wonder if the aliens were purposely meant to be displayed like PPD’s silly invaders, who I always laughed at. The theme of the first half, with people noticing random things, was also as witty as ever. Everyone probably knows that feeling. I know I certainly have. Someone needs to tell me what this is too. All I know is that JP seems to be fond of the image.

The second part of the episode with Nozomu fearing Kudo’s mind reading was a nice play on human paranoia too. It’s kind of like how people will tend to glance more while punching in passwords at the ATM when others are closer to them. Kudo’s storytelling gave me some ef vibes at random, but it was pretty funny in general too. Lastly, I loved the Kiri fanservice. I usually wouldn’t point that out, but she’s definitely my favorite character. The funny love love vibes between her and Majiru made me giddy too. To top it all off, they played on the pointless conversations again.

This time instead of doing major experimentation, Shaft just decided to have parts of the episode mirrored in other places. I think I like it better that way, even though I was so ready to carefully examine the episode after being SHAFTed twice already. I also noticed this last week, but they’re definitely changing the ED slightly each episode. It was much more obvious this time around with Kaere. The last few episodes were good, but they just didn’t have the same awesome effect on me that all of the episodes from the first season had. This episode definitely pushed SZS up for me, but now the only question is if they can make me love it as much I did before.