Arakawa Under the Bridge x2 - Episode 11

If you thought we'd seen the last of the Amazoness after losing her battle to gain Ric's attention with Nino, think again - she's well and truly back for episode eleven, where her behaviour dominates proceedings.

Her return begins as festival time begins for the under-bridge residents - one has to wonder how they can afford entire festival layouts for a handful of people, but I suppose it's best not to think about such things.  With the girls all dressed up and wearing yukata there's an understandable excitement coming from Ric and Star in particular, although this soon turns to dread and foreboding from the former once the aforementioned Amazoness shows up.  Of course, our less than girly girl does her best to grabs Ric's attention, before things take an interesting turn as Star's words of encouragement and praise (not to mention a winning ice lolly stick) turn her eye somewhat.

The rest of the episode from this point forth sees Amazoness torn between her old love and her new flame as her words and actions slip out of sync - next thing we know she's presenting Ric with a Star themed boxed lunch and chainmail before destroying both in a fit of confusion.  Of course, both Ric and Star are clueless to what this is all about, leaving it to Nino's female intuition... err, Venusian vibes rather... to figure out just what is going on and counil Amazoness appropriately.  Next thing we know her "Tengu" have even set up a beach to lure the apple of Amazoness' eye into, which leads to probably the highlight of this episode as a quartet of the show's male chararacters "behave like the girls" for a while on an empty beach.  Still, come the end of it all Star finally gets to know Amazoness' feelings, and accepts them too... kind of.

Compared to a number of episodes of this series, I have to admit that this instalment of Arakawa Under the Bridge didn't seem quite so sharp in terms of its comedy - luckily it warmed up as the episode progressed, and there were some laugh out loud moments, but it wasn't as consistent for me as we've come to expect from the series.  Still, a few good laughs are enough to make this a passable effort (even if it's slipped behind SHAFT's other comedy for the season in terms of humour of late), which also did a little to set us up for the "trip to Venus" which much surely be the intriguing culmination of the series.