Slight redemption!

While still far from perfection, YoakeYori is showing faint signs of redemption as its beach episode did not end up as a complete disaster. Though I’m still wary about the series as a whole since it’s pretty difficult to screw up a beach episode. And with next week’s episode preview showing it to have the potential to be either excellent dramatic tension or more boring than a static physics lecture, I still remain tentative about the continuation of this series.

Pretty typical beach episode, a staple in most harems, which means an onslaught of swimsuit wearing bishoujos. Score. After a small scare with chibi trying to squeeze its way in during the opening moments we’re quickly back on track as the girls show off their ridiculously proportioned bodies one by one.

The predictable beach montage proceeds with shots of girls splashing each other, a swimming lesson and a perfectly broken watermelon.

The fun starts when Takano brings around a small boat, and I mean small, and somehow crams the 10 of them on it for a cruise around the island. The ship promptly sinks and Tatsuya’s harem ends up stranded on an island. The initial panic that is associated with the possibility of death is subdued by Feena who reasons that they will be rescued soon enough once they notice she’s missing and so they continue to enjoy their vacation.

We get some plot development as Tatsuya and Feena get some alone time. As Tatsuya marvels at Feena’s determination in life he reaffirms his goal to make it to the moon one day. This causes a flashback to when he was little and met a purple haired loli who’s mom had just died, who coincidentally happened to be from the moon…who had royal escorts…*click* OMG FEENA!? Ignoring the perfect set up for a moonlit, seaside reunion kiss, Tatsuya opts to pinches her nose again. Lame.

The rest of the episode was kind of a blur, I was struggling to keep awake but I did manage to hang on to some of it. Something about Takano setting the whole thing up and the island not really being deserted. Some more Feena perfection as she masters swimming in a few days…aaaand I seem to remember some alcohol induced yuri, some alcohol induced yaoi and, of course, some obligatory Jin bashing.

Thoughts

Not the greatest beach episode ever, but not exactly a failure either. The animation and character designs were a VAST improvement from our lovable cabbage sphere, but nothing groundbreaking. And with the exception of Feena (who gave off kotori vibes) swimsuit designs were rather uninspired, which was disappointing.

Plot development was kind of iffy in this episode. I’d like to believe that Tatsuya is a fairly intelligent human being, and as such I fail to see how he could remember the childhood meeting in such detail and not piece together the connection to Feena. But I guess all is justified in the name of plot device, continuity just got massacred though =(.

Another gripe I have with the path that this show is going down is that there seems to be a serious lack of competition. Feena is already being built up as the clear winner. There was so much potential in a Natsuki vs Feena battle for Tatsuya’s feelings. Even though we all know that the childhood friend always loses to the newcomer, it still would have added some much needed drama into an otherwise static relationship plot. Not that I’m not happy to see Feena reigning supreme, but what good is victory if it’s handed to you on a silver platter, ne ojou-sama?

I’m finding it difficult to blog about YoakeYori, which is usually a sign that the series isn’t worth continuing. But conversely, there’s this part of me that has a faint hope that the ending will be awesome, not basing this on anything it’s just intuition. So I’ll stick with it, it may not see blogging completion on an episode by episode basis, but I think I’ll watch it to the end and at least do a wrap up.

The August Soft production team needs to visit a real beach

The wonders of alcohol

Uguu~

For Haruhi’s sake, KISS HER DAMNIT!

~ Shirukii ~