Kyouran Kazoku Nikki - Episode 16

Coming up with enough new plots to fill a twenty-six episode series, particularly for a madcap show like Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, must be not far short of a nightmare, and I can only sympathise with any script writers who have to handle those kind of pressures. But seriously, if you're running out of plot ideas don't go back and basically repeat what you did only a few episodes ago.

That's right, after featuring a story arc where humans are being turned into animals not very long ago at all, episode sixteen of this series features the beginning of a story arc where.... humans are turned into animals.


Okay, so it's all framed slightly differently this time, and Teika is the overall focus of the episode on this occasion, but other than that choosing to revisit this ground seems lazy in the extreme. To make things worse this episode was, quite simply, a mess. Sure, this is supposed to be a mad and crazy series, but it could at least try to remain coherent rather than bouncing around all over the place like a hyperactive hamster with a sugar rush. Maybe I'm just too tired to get it, but the whole affair seemed decidedly bewildering to me, and coupled with its overall lack of quality I'm not even particularly prepared to wait for the plot to be expounded upon next episode.

I've talked before about the hit-and-miss quality of this series, but the longer it goes on the more misses it seems to be racking up compared to hits, leaving it with the serious possibility of ending up as a below average effort in my mind.