I hate to sound like a broken record yet again, but the five minute running time of each episode is absolutely destroying anything that could be made interesting about this series. Indeed, this episode is a prime example of the problem. While your average anime series would have taken the idea of a hidden code to find this secret lair and turned it into a full episode of its own, complete with a "Wow, what a moment of genius!" point of revelation, Chocolate Underground skips this process entirely, merely throwing in as an afterthought at the start of the episode "Oh by the way they've figured out the code from the last episode". Quite simply, it's weak.
Add in to that the fact that we still don't really know anything about any of the main characters, and quite frankly we're left with no real reason to care. Perhaps if each episode came with a slab of chocolate I might feel a little more hospitable towards it, but it doesn't, so I don't. In truth, it only leaves me feeling hungry for a better series.
I felt more benign towards this episode since we actually saw some chocolate, but is there any point watching episode 5 when we've basically seen it in the preview? Plus the whole code-breaking thing was a bit stupid- it just leads to a poorly concealed and unlocked room that anyone could wander into by chance anyway. I'm starting to think the series is more about killing time than ever going anywhere.
ReplyDeleteIt does make me laugh how a five minute episode gets about a one-minute preview of the next episode, thus covering almost the entirety of the next instalment!
ReplyDeleteHowever, you are forgetting their all-powerful CCTV camera, so that they know when they're about to be invaded... ;)