Threes: Star Driver, Panty&Stocking, Yumeiro Pro

Star Driver 3 is the most straightforward so far. The Glittering Star’s organization has begun to make sense, and for the time being their aims are not so confusing. Also, we’ve seen much of it before.

The enemy leader of the week is Kanako, she of the green hair and kissing through glass. We learn that she is fabulously rich thanks to marrying an oil tycoon, and she’s a tremendous flirt. Now, Glittering Star may have higher motives in mind, but right now all they want to do is defeat Takuto. Kanako finds she may have just the fighter when Takuto squares off in a kendo duel with one of her flunkies, Takashi. So its off the drugged-out cosmic dueling dimension!

The fights are routine, but damn, they're good to look at.

The fight is the usual stuff. The style of combat reflects the enemy’s personality, which puts Takuto at a temporary disadvantage. But then he pulls out a surprise and wins. Writer Yoji Enokido, I am led to believe, did a lot of work on Sailer Moon and Utena, so it makes sense. I have a feeling he’s also responsible for much of the show’s flamboyant visual style. Considering the quality of those shows I’m pretty sure this is going to be far more than a robot of the week series. Hell, I’d probably keep watching anyway just for the eye-candy.

After three episodes of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt I’m ready to pack it in. Not that it’s not any good, in fact, it can be a lot of fun. And it’s hard to offend me, though this show manages to come close, especially with the second story this week. It’s just that beneath the crazy visuals and foul jokes it’s … ordinary.

In the first story, Panty and Stocking have a fight. Stocking goes off to fight the evil ghost alone and nearly gets killed, or whatever happens to people like her. And so we learn that the girls are unbeatable only when they fight together. I can’t say that this is the most original moral I’ve ever heard.

The second story is a bewildering riff on sperm which uses a Normandy landing metaphor, among other things. Amusing. But I don’t feel I care to write about this every week. Down the line I’ll come across an episode (on American cable, because I think that’s its next destination) and think “Ah, a nice way to kill fifteen minutes.”

After some delays with faulty fansubs I got to watch Yumeiro Patissiere Professional. Good episode. Intros are all done and the show regains its stride.

The gang take turns trying to sell their style of shop, only to find the customers indifferent. They sit around a lot wondering what to do. In fact, we can see two problems already. The interior of the shop is still not ready for customers (the fairy magic only works on exteriors, I guess), so no one can sit down. And the main action is down the international street. Er, Kashino doesn’t help his own cause by becoming the Chocolate Nazi. The translation doesn’t actually say “No sweets for you!” but it could have. We get a nice scene where Johnny talks about the American sweets scene as an amalgamation of immigrant styles, and Ichigo decides he’s not such a doofus after all. But that might complicate the love triangle issue …

53 episodes in and I've never seen Andou look that mad before.

So their shop is in bad shape. Worse, so is Andou’s. With inadequate supplies and staff the big crowds he had on the first day has dwindled to nothing, and he’s in danger of being shut down. So now we have two crises on our hands. What’s more, the previews show Andou falling ill from exhaustion. Well, it also showed Johnny and Ichigo sharing a bike ride, so the episode won’t be a total downer.

Oh, I can’t resist posting one more screenshot:

Johnny's beginning to fit in.

Twos: Star Driver, Panty & Stocking

Star Driver 2 runs pretty much the same way episode one did. Start out with eccentric normality and end with an acid trip battle. The only reason it doesn’t top last week’s WTF is that we’re getting used to the routine. Mixed in with the main story are little scenes and moments, tossed-out metaphors that fly by but I assume will have great importance later on.

To begin with Takuto is introduced to more strange people, such a married woman who will kiss anyone if there’s glass between them (kissing through glass is a metaphor for this episode, though I haven’t quite figured out what it means). I was wondering it all relates to his recent battle. We learn soon enough when he’s led to another odd batch of people who know all about the Cybodies and are determined to stop them. None other than …

… from whom we get some backstory. We get more during an absurd meeting of the Glittering Crux Brigade (the bad guys), who plan to take Takuto out. It’s a wonderfully overdone scene. While they scheme and contemplate the fallout from last night’s failure we get sinister waltz music and an unseen crowd who cheer and boo on cue. A great way to cover up an infodump.

Scarlet Kiss makes her move.

This evil group may cooperate but its members are capable of acting on their own, hence last week’s “Raging Bull” failure. Glittering Crux member Scarlet Kiss, also the dorm’s RA, can charm any man she kisses, so first she tries to kiss Takuto (the kiss-through-glass metaphor comes up again), then kisses another underling. Things are (pleasantly) silly enough, but it’s just getting started.

Last week Wako was physically kidnapped and taken to the evil lair. This time she’s just whisked away. So is Takuto. Maybe you can’t do one without the other. We get another fight, this one laced with comedy as the enemy, Tetsuya, is hopped up on Scarlet’s kiss mojo and the baddies looking on joke that he’s a virgin. It ends as you would expect but again with so much to look at you don’t care. This show, at least for a while, will have an enemy of the week format. Next time it’ll be the married glass-kisser.

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt 2′s second story is the better one. In the first they infiltrate a high school to figure out the mystery of missing students. By infiltrate I mean pretty much take the place over.

It’s all right. It has lots of bees and football players and the school queen is named Barby. The second one expands the show’s reach. No mystery to solve, instead, the girls prepare for their premiere movie, only for Panty at the preview to mention she was once in a movie before. She just happens to have a copy …

The public learns about Panty's past.

So off they go around the world to track down every copy of the video. These are the best scenes, brief but with a million little things happening at once. This show’s great at throwing things at you. Not so great in inspiring me to write profound things about it. But it was nice to see the two girls actually at odds with each other for once.

New season: Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Letter Bee Reverse

I was going to start the new season with Iron Man, but the sub didn’t work. So it’s on to Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. By the way, you can gauge the popularity of a show by the number of fansubs that appear. Iron Man has hardly any while PSG has plenty, though not as many as the Sora no Otoshimono sequel, a show I won’t be covering. I couldn’t finish the first season. I know the fansubbers want to do shows they like, but I wish there was a way to spread it around.

I had gathered that Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt was a raunchy show with a Powerpuff Girl vibe. That’s pretty much what I got. The girls and their boss fight ghosts in Daten City, which is on the cusp of something. Panty is sex-starved, Stocking is sugar-starved, and Garterbelt has an afro. That’s about all you need to know about them.Oh, they have a dog-thing named Chuck, I believe, whose job it is to get beaten up by the heroes every few minutes. In the first story they must find out why toilets have been eating people. We quickly learn that the girls don’t give a crap, so to speak, but are interested in heavenly coins they get when they cleanse an possessed person. It’s only when Panty is herself sucked down the loo that they begin to take it seriously.

The show doesn’t hold back. The shit literally flies as the girls confront the monster and “cleanse” it with a gun and sword (the titular items, transformed, which means Panty has to drop ‘em before she can effectively fight). Don’t ask me what the pole-dance scene was all about, please. After the probably deliberate shock of the first story the second is bound to be a letdown, since it only has to do with a spirit possessing vehicles which the girls must chase down. But it’s not bad.

One of three gazillion action screenshots I could have taken.

The artwork is crude but they make up for it by having something happen almost every moment. It’s almost impossible to keep up. It’s a good thing that they put in two stories per episode. Having one long one would wear me out. There’s nothing really new in this show but if they can keep up the manic pace it’ll be fun to watch once a week. No more.

I’m going to watch Letter Bee Reverse, but it’s on probation. The first season overstuffed itself with badly-written, unimportant stories, meanwhile the main story (Gauche) was pretty much ignored until the finale. Do I want to watch more of this?

First we get the same scene we got before. Lag sees Gauche, but Gauche doesn’t remember him, or anything, really, calls himself Noir, a marauder. He blasts Lag with a black spirit amber. Meanwhile Gauche’s dingo Roda manages to scratch Niche (which apparently means she’s formidable) then hurts her more by saying she’s a failure of a dingo. Off they go, leaving Lag to cry and Niche to fume.

I can't remember which one is saying it, not that it matters.

One thing came back to me. Lag cries a lot and lots of time is taken to show it. After an informative scene at the hive (where we are reintroduced to Largo, Aria, and Thunderland, who alas doesn’t talk about dissection) where we learn about an anti-governmental group called Reverse, we fall back to depressed Lag and poor Niche. Another long scene where Lag despairs over telling Sylvette about her brother. Good lord this show takes its time! A scene where Sylvette praises Lag and they cry some more. The only plot movement in the second half involves Niche.

So we’re going to get at least one episode where Lag looks for Niche. There will be crying involved. It will take up a lot of time. But at least they’re more or less still on the main story track—for now. So I’ll keep watching.