Monday 25 August 2008

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki - Episode 15

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki's episode quality continues to be a hit-and-miss affair, and goodness knows when (or even if) we'll ever get around to the revelation of who the actual descendant of Enka is, but at least in the grand scheme of things this latest instalment of the series was actually okay. In fact, dare I say it, it was actually quite amusing in places.

The overall 'theme' of the episode has been done a million times before, with Kyouka taking on the role of a 'magical girl' of sorts, in an attempt to get revenge on Ouka because he forgot their first wedding anniversary (he's a guy, it's the kind of thing we do, give the poor bloke a break!). Of course, that plan doesn't work out at all, and indeed her magic wand only ends up punishing other people, with hilarious consequences on one occasion and completely forgettable consequences on the other half dozen or so. Needless to say, it all ends up with everybody happy at the end of the day, ready for another completely random and off-topic episode next time around I suppose.


For all its occasional bright moments (somehow, the recap at the start opf the episode which turned into Teika biting his tongue and getting angsty tickled me), a lot of the heart that existed earlier in this series seems to have evaporated, with any emotions on show being much more twee and predictable than the sort of thing that actually surprised me in the early episodes of Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. Between that, and a lack of real humourous focus for the madcap craziness that the series relies on heavily, this really feels like a show without direction now, and there doesn't seem to be much evidence of it regaining that anytime soon. So, this was a passable effort, with a few laughs thankfully, but I can't even begin to predict what I'll be saying come the next episode.

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