The trouble is that poor old Pina has nobody to discuss her love of anime with (oh, how we all know that feeling well) in a school packed with refined ladies who are learning to talk about opera and other supposedly more highbrow pursuits. However, thanks to a freak meeting with Hino (as happens every episode with this series), she subsequently discovers that the school's principle is also quite the otaku as well, and the subsequent discussion convinces her that it would be great if she could submit her own dounjinshi for a forthcoming event.
Of course, all of the usual suspects get dragged into creating said doujinshi, which ends up as a cosplay photo shoot by way of an excuse for a bit of nudity (I say a bit as it's all pretty brief compared to previous episodes of this show) and a lot of dressing the characters in ridiculous outfits. Much of the focus of the instalment plot-wise is about Pina's attempts to get Mimina involved, which is probably supposed to bring some emotional resonance to proceedings or something.
Sorry, did I just use the words "emotional resonance" in a synopsis of Ladies versus Butlers!? Needless to say, there's not really anything much noteworthy going on here in terms of plot or character depth, and to be honest even the fan service was pretty light this time around, which was nearly a refreshing change in itself. There are still certain aspects of this show to like (I'm still a pretty big fan of Hino's character), but they're not really enough to paper over the big cracks that surround the series as a whole. I'll leave it to you to make your own "big crack" jokes about this show.
The Tomomi character is an enigma. Everyone with a history with her is afraid of her and she sinisterly sneers all the time, but she's been pretty harmless throughout the show so far. Should we chalk this up to poor characterization as well?
ReplyDeleteI don't know about harmless... Well Tomomi isn't flat out evil (yet), in pretty much every episode she manipulates people into doing things they don't want to (either knowingly or unknowingly)... which is more than enough reason for everyone to be afraid of her. I don't really expect her to go yandere... well not until the last few episodes anyway.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping Tomomi gets a bit more exposition (and exposure perhaps - have we seen her naked yet? :p) too... They're certainly hinting at something a little beyond her simply being manipulative, but you can never tell whether this series is doing something on purpose or just by some kind of happy accident to be honest!
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