There's little doubting Munakata's threat once any pleasantries have been dispensed with, and he uses a sword to quite literally aim for the jugular in Medaka's case. With our protagonist still recovering from her injuries in the previous bout of fighting however, it's up to Hitoyoshi to step up to the plate against this larger than life character as he demonstrates his absolute desire to kill anything and everything that comes close to him.
Certainly, Munakata has no shortage of concealed weapons to try and deal damage to his opponent with... the trouble is, he doesn't seem particularly proficient at using them, as we see Zenkichi deflect wave after wave of attack from swords to guns to rocket launchers with ease before seemingly putting him out of commission. It's the moment where Hitoyoshi lets his guard down that Munakata's truly lethal nature comes to the fore however, meaning that Hitoyoshi needs to use his reserves of strength and one final trick up his sleeve to win the day.
As I mentioned after last week's instalment, functional seems to be the name of the game with Medaka Box - it doesn't have any particular visual tricks or cleverness to rely on, and instead concentrates on delivering the series with a straight bat (or at least as straight a bat as you could hope to use in an Nisio Isin work). For the most part this works well enough in terms of delivering its story and the delicious twists and turns with their ironic nods to shounen manga as a whole, but it still feels a little empty and devoid of character to the point where you might as well be reading the manga to be quite honest given the lack of anything to make this medium feel in any way superior. At the moment then, I'm enjoying the series more as a chance to take in the Medaka Box story again, rather than enjoying it in its own right.
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