3rd August 2010, 7:54 PM
Quote:t isn't a terrible set-up for a climax, but the restricted time frame—made all the more so by the occasional return to romantic complications best left in limbo—leaves it no space to unfold. Events are mashed up against one another like frightened sardines in a particularly small can, and you can practically see the series eyeing its watch as it plows through emotional confrontations, stripping them of all resonance. The pace is hectic, the progression of events is sloppy, and betrayals of character are common as there is no time to sufficiently justify anyone's behavior. The effect is disastrous, lending even the most obviously premeditated events an air of pulled-from-the-rear randomness. Akuto's long-anticipated transformation in particular is so flagrantly unconvincing that it fairly burns the enjoyment out of the entire climax. And then, just to bake the ashes a little more, the series reaches for the reset button, looks you right in the eye, and presses it. Crash. Burn. And with any luck, never return.
So catastrophic is the narrative self-destruction that it's difficult to honestly enjoy even the non-plot-dependent qualities. The pervasive high-end fan-service becomes a hindrance during the climax, time being an endangered resource even before panty shots start eating it up. The way the intrusive censorship yanks us out of the fights doesn't help either. From a purely technical perspective, the fights themselves are excellent. Their mix of impact-heightening shortcuts, punchy intercutting, smartly-deployed animation, and magical CGI glitz is rock-solid, and the inclusion of the student council and various ninjas and villains mixes things up nicely. But while undeniably cool, they aren't very interesting—a direct consequence of us not caring whether the participants live or are reduced to ectoplasm.
Sometimes you get the scorpion.