I now know the despair the people of Hyrule felt when the hero did not appear.
After the second half of the show began to skimp on the service the last remaining hope was the final episode. The heavy focus on story would all be forgiven and made up for in the final episode in which they would finally let loose with the nudity to make up for the second half lacking in much of it is what many probably thought. Though we got nudity of almost everyone early on there still were characters that had yet to get heavy focus or perfect views of their nudity let alone the Hanzo girls absence for most of the show leading to slim pickings of them and still nothing from Daidoji or Rin yet. So all hope was put in the final episode to deliver salvation. Things were grim and knowing there are no specials on BD meant this would be our last chance at nudity for these characters possibly forever. And as the people cried out for the hero of nudity to save them……………………….the hero did not appear.
Hope you can fap to story as that is all you are getting. There is one very brief transparent nude frame of Asuka’s chest (as if we haven’t already seen her naked enough already) if you want to count that but other than that nothing. No ending consisting of lighthearted nudity or anything like that. Time to get this over with.
I just realized I won’t have to do too much describing in this episode as most of it will just be “They keep fighting”
Asuka and the other’s continue their fight with Rasetsu. When asked why she chooses to help Fubuki she reveals that her mother saved her once so she owes it to her. Asuka and the others then do their transformations to fully fight her. And of course we get no transformation scenes here which could had at least resulted in the episode having nudity but no it’s just instant. Similarly when the others are searching for Yumi they transform instantly also.
After everyone takes turns attacking Rasetsu and getting her HP low enough to be caught be a pokeball Asuka tries her sealing skill on her.
This is all you get when it comes to nudity this episode.
Rasetsu begins thinking about Fubuki and gets a shounen powerup and is able to break free and fight back again.
Homura tells Asuka she will try the sealing skill as well since she saw her do it so many times she can mimic it and so both of them try the skill at the same time to try and seal Rasetsu.
Yumi gets beat by Fubuki and thrown into the lake. Senkou and Gekkou show up and try to convince Fubuki to stop the same way Yumi did it to them which fails as she gets ready to attack them. The others arrive and as she gets ready to fight them as well they tell her Yumi will be the one to finish things pointing out that she isn’t dead like she thinks as Yumi breaks out of the lake’s ice to fight again.
After Homura and Asuka’s sealing attempt fails, Miyabi decides she will do it as well as she transforms again and uses the skill also. With the combined power of all three of their seals it is able to seal Rasetsu away.
Fubuki senses that Rasetsu was beat and gets another powerup to fight Yumi only to still lose to her in the end.
Kagura and her group have arrived at the portal as she destroys it preventing anymore youma from entering the world.
Everyone rests after the fight with Rasetsu as Haruka gets a phone call from Rin saying that her and the others at kikai dome have sealed the place up and have stopped the youma there and are all safe. I’ll save my thoughts for the end but this is just another example of how badly paced and rushed the entire story was. This is the last we hear from Rin and don’t even get to see the others or anything involving them. So what was the point of it all? Resolving a plot point that was referenced multiple times throughout the show in like 2 seconds with a phone call doesn’t get any more blatant that they poorly planned out the story’s pace.
Yumi gives Fubuki back the accessory from her grandfather as she and the others leave while Gekkou and Senkou stay with her.
We see everyone doing some random stuff after everything has been resolved. Not much time is here but they could had at least used this point for more service but instead they don’t and spend it on this stuff.
Yumi and Asuka are shopping when they come across Fubuki who gives Yumi the accessory back telling her that she no longer needs it and will find her own place in the world as she leaves with Senkou and Gekkou following her. Yumi takes the accessory and splits it half giving Asuka the sword while she keeps the shield since they are both pairs. And with that the show ends.
So for starters this final episode didn’t deliver on the service everyone wanted. This was a major disappointment but is just one of the many problems this show ended up having. Usually I’m not negative but even I have to admit the negatives of this show far outnumber the positives. The big positive to address first is that we got nudity of characters that we did not get nude in that ova from 3 years ago. Being able to see that with characters we were denied back then was worthy of praise. The first half of the show was good providing us with service of characters we had not seen yet and pretty much a large amount of nudity that those earlier episodes felt like stand alone ovas in their own right. However once we reached the halfway point is when everything started to go downhill.
The second half of the show began to have such a heavy focus on story that the show almost feels like it was two different shows because of how disjointed the first and second half were from each other. Having a heavy focus on story isn’t always a bad thing and for those of us that have played the games we know that the series does give a large dedication on story and characters over service at times so this normally wouldn’t be an issue except for one problem and that is the story was terrible with many flaws. If you are going to shift the focus on story over service than at the very least that story better be special. To begin with the Shinobi Masters tournament is in the very title of the show and yet received almost no focus at all.
The first half of the show revolved around it but then the actual event itself was like one episode and that was it. How do you have the titular element of your show done and over with that quick? The entire story should had honestly been spent on the tournament since you know it is kind of the title of the show. Rather than all this youma stuff the tournament should had just been an entire show lasting event with all the groups competing in wacky crazy service filled events and maybe some bathing episodes inbetween all for the purpose of each group wanting to win whatever the prize is. Remove the Fubuki sob story stuff and just make the entire show lighthearted fun rather than attempt to make a serious story which wasn’t going to work with the limited time they had compared to a game’s length. The Fubuki stuff was poorly handled as well as we are told youma are good and capable of feelings and shinobi are evil yet neither are these backed up with evidence. I was expecting her past to be her village of youma and humans together were killed by shinobi to purge them or something but instead we got a sob story that is tamer than the childhoods of some disney main characters.
Even with these flaws with the story and the minimal nudity in the second half this could had all been forgiven if we at the very least had specials on BD but we don’t. It makes no sense either since the first series which remained non nude had them but now after finally breaking the nudity barrier and being able to deliver really good specials we get nothing. Made worse when you consider how perfectly ordered specials could had been. They simply could had made the show 6 BDs with 6 specials and have each special focusing on a different group each time with Asuka, Homura, Miyabi, Yumi, and Kagura’s groups for 5 of them then a final 6th one with everyone. Would had allowed for nudity of each group individually as well as a way to get Daidoji and Rin nudity in as well. That isn’t the only missed opportunity either but the lack of lewd eyecatches as well. With the DxD director at the helm and the fact that TNK did the animation having those would had been perfect. Hell it would had allowed us to get nudity of characters that were not around for any service scenes as well such as Rin and Daidoji and even Rasestu. Initially this didn’t bother me as much but as the show started minimizing the service it became all the more bullshit to not have them as they could had at least made some episodes salvageable.
Regardless of if you are one of those that have followed the games since the start or the others that have only watched the show and have no other experience with the series you probably found something disappointing with this. Having played the games I could handle the shift to story over service since if you play the games you are used to a heavy story but when that story felt half assed then I get bothered. I can’t even imagine how pissed those that have no attachment to the characters and were only in it for the nudity feel though it’s probably not too happy. This show ultimately tried to be more like the mainline games instead of the spinoffs like the cooking game or recent pinball one and that feels like it hurt it. There wasn’t enough time in a 12 episode show to do a serious story like the games so going the fun spinoff route would had been better.
In the end though it was nice that we got nudity of almost all the characters (not counting new wave) but it felt like they wanted to get it out of the way early on just so they could say they did it and then push it under the rug. The show wasn’t bad by any means since that first half was good but it feels like it just consisted of a huge amount of missed potential. That is actually probably the best way to sum the show up. It delivers some nice stuff that we wouldn’t had seen otherwise but in the end doesn’t take full advantage of the freedom the anime gave. Would love to see an ova in the future to make up for some of this lost potential so hopefully that does happen one day. More importantly if the games wants to have any future they need to get away from sony as fast as possible and onto PC and Switch as the main platforms and leave sony behind. Ideally all japanese companies need to bail as well and hopefully they do but in the meantime if senran wants to continue on as we know it and even have the possibility of an ova it needs to distance itself from violence loving fanservice hating sony before it losses what makes the series so appealing.
I wrote way too much. I guess that is what happens when it involves a series I have more exposure to than most. WordPress doesn’t seem to have a way to make text hide in a sense that you can click a “read more” button to read the rest of it. In other words a way to abridge something so that people that want to see the full version they can by clicking so I had to cut some stuff out. Anyway this is probably my last post of 2018 so having it be the longest is fitting I guess. Going to have to figure out what to do posts on next season since there is nothing of note for the season. Probably will just do manga comps.
