First off, it seems Japan doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time, as this episode, just like the previous one, was uploaded an hour earlier. I need to remember to watch it at 2am instead of 3am next time. Not a bad problem to have. The wait for HorribleSubs for a source I can rip images off, however, is still rather unbearable.
Wow, this was one lazy episode all around. If it weren’t for the fact that it covers important plot threads, I would be tempted to call it filler.
This was another bad art episode and oh boy does it show. Which is a shame, because the episode STARTED out pretty decent-looking and brought my hopes up.
To be fair, there aren’t any particularly blatant errors worth drawing attention to. It’s just obvious shortcuts and some awkward-looking walking animations abound. And occasionally the proportions of two characters standing next to each other seem off.
It blows my mind just how badly everything was directed, though. Again, nothing we haven’t seen before: bad close-ups, weird panning angles, blatant attempts to fill time – the regular works. It’s just frustrating that it’s a problem that persists.
One of the high points of the episode is a simple comedic scene where Minako draws attention to the fact that she’s been carrying a huge black sword around in broad daylight.
Just for the record, the other high point was Venus using Love-Me Chain.
The fact that we got a proper Venus transformation & introduction scene is sullied by the awkward choice of shuffling it with FULL transformation sequences from Mercury and Mars, and we’re forced to suffer through the return of Mars’ awful, AWFUL post-transformation speech, weird hand gesture and all. They couldn’t have been bothered to fix that atrocity? Also, I hoped we would save full transformation scenes for an important or dramatic moment, but the moment they choose for their return is… a showdown against brainwashed Mamoru in the command center? Just. Awful. It seems like it was done just to fill time, which is a shame because there was so much more they could have done with this episode. And yes, it bothers me that the Four Kings didn’t make a proper appearance.
To make matters worse, there were a few snafus with the subtitling. Quite a few subs were entirely too long for the short amount of time they were on screen, and I’m a pretty fast reader.
Outside of the things I HOPED would happen (Four Kings joining brainwashed Endymion), the one scene I looked forward to the most in this episode was Luna getting attacked, which I thought was an important scene in the manga (even if it was just two panels), and the episode did give it some of the attention I felt was due… but I was disappointed at the lack of blood. Endymion just kinda throws her to the ground, and it doesn’t look quite as brutal as I think it should have. Still, at least the focus was there.
Overall, it was a pretty mediocre episode made worse because THIS was the episode we returned to after a three-week wait. Which is kind of the reverse of what happened the last time we had a three-week wait, as the last few episodes before the break were GORGEOUS and this one… ew.
As for the next episode preview… I’m shocked that we’re actually getting a lot of footage, and it looks pretty good. Despite today’s episode, I’m proper hyped, especially since I know that chapter covers the climax of the arc. Please, please, please… out of all the chapters, chapter 12 is the one you HAVE to do perfectly.