This week focuses more on “action” and “plot” than previous episodes.
Following the manga, we get a scene where MC and Yakumo go on what is probably supposed to be a date together. Though I didn’t really care for her character initially because she comes across as a cold bitch, this scene reveals that her icy demeanor is really just her method of seducing masochistic men. She has MC suck her fingers before slowly stripping (in public), all while maintaining a sense of superiority over the MC. The voice actress pulls this scene off really well, and if you think about it, she’s a good compliment for the MC who really is the pathetic loser she says he is.
Whether this character is appealing is in the eye of the beholder. But I did think that it was an interesting and unique choice for a loli character, as loli in anime are typically portrayed as pure and innocent. I would say this character is growing on me.
An eel flies into Misa’s clothes, and with all the potential here for pervy fun, there isn’t any nudity for this scene in the manga which means there won’t be for the anime either. This scene goes down as a waste of a face down ass up pose, sadly.
I hope they add more detail to the panty / ass shot here on BD. Normally the anime matches the erotic detail of the manga on shots like these but in this case they had minimal effort.
And only moments later, they remember how to draw an ass again.
Itsuyo is fully nude in this panel of the manga, though her clothes strangely return later during this same ‘grasping’ scene. Maybe it’s supposed to be a nude “out of body” mental image? It’ll be interesting to see what they do on BD here.
We get a minor nipple sighting in the manga version of this shot. However, the bulk of the nudity comes after this point in an extended part of this scene that was cut from the anime. This continues a trend of some of the more ecchi parts of the manga being completely absent in the anime so far. It’s entirely possible that this was done with the intention of having extended scenes on BD which many previous ecchi anime have done. Let’s hope that is the case. Here is how the “too ecchi for TV” part of that scene played out in the manga:
Additionally, there was a standalone image of Natsuki nude and being grasped by the shadowy hands. It seemed to be a piece of bonus art rather than something from the main story. See below:
Sometimes these art pieces are still used by the anime as eyecatches, hopefully that is the case here.
Overall thoughts:
Another week, another series of suspiciously absent ecchi shots. This is probably just evidence of the series going the Shinmai route, but until I see confirmation it’s going to keep me just a little nervous.
On the plus side, the art work continues to improve towards being decent, particularly the girls faces.
Another positive note, this series covered chapters 9, 10, and part of 11… basically about 2.5 chapters. It’s the first episode in the series to up the pace from two chapters per episode. That’s important because for this series to get to the really ecchi scenes that come later it needs to pick up the pace at least a little bit and this episode did just that.
Looking at the next episode trailer, it looks like next week we’ll get the quasi-sex scene between MC and Natsuki. That means we’ll get at least through chapter 13 next week, and if that sex scene is massively cut as I expect it to be, there’s a good chance they might get through chapter 14 as well. If they can manage that, they’d be on a 28 chapter pace. The big climactic battle in the manga and the big bath scene after it occurs though chapter 32.
