There's only one thing that's consistent with this show; you never know what's going to happen next.
The social commentary wrapped up in seemingly random and surprisingly dark humor is what makes this show so interesting, yet I'm starting to wonder if this show is just throwing everything at the wall and not caring what sticks. Last week I pointed out that the story of the cancelled manga that tried everything but accomplished nothing could easily become Jintai's fate as well, and this episode does seem to point in that direction. It's still missing those sharp barbs from the first two episodes. Or maybe we've just gotten used to it.
This episode had plenty of the usual randomness alongside a higher dosage of fairies, but I don't really know what this arc is supposed to be about. Electricity? Hikikomori? We already did commentary on an otaku lifestyle last time, and while I know that hikikomori are not necessarily otaku, the two tend to go together. I hope that's not where this arc is headed and was just a brief joke because, once again, that seems like the easy route to take considering the audience for this show. On the other hand, I have no idea what one could say about electricity. Watashi mentions that she'd love to live in an electric culture, since in decline it's harder to produce. Is the show going to try some moral about wasting resources? That still seems too broad.
The only thing that does seem to make sense are the video game allusions, with the slimes as a fairly obvious reference given Japan's obsession with Dragon Quest. The new character Pion seems like some kind of robot A.I., and she talks about her "character" and how she's "supposed to act," which makes me think she's some kind of roleplay character. It would explain the cat ears at least.
I was happy that the fairies were far more present in this episode, since they continue to get all the best lines and we got a few more details about them as well. Some details still don't mesh though; they can put themselves in suspended animation as a ring but can't make their own sweets? The explanation probably has something to do with EM waves being lethal to them, and I guess if this arc is going to discuss electricity we might get a reason later.
However, as a whole the episode felt padded. Not much actually happened, which makes me wonder if the staff is sticking to the two-episode rule no matter what or if this was how the source material was. Fans of the light novel have said that the anime is adapting it out of order, and it shows in the time skips between arcs. This seems to be the earliest we've gone, are we going through a period of the novel before it developed into what we saw in the first two episodes? If that's the case, and we're already out of order, why not just skip those parts and adapt something else? What's stopping the staff? Maybe it'll make more sense next week.
I'm going to say that a lot about this show, aren't I?
Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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