Tsukune confronts Moka’s father, who hates humans, about getting a new rosario for her.

Impressions:

I thought this episode was done very well. I didn’t really expect for the guy to be Moka’s father. I did think it was a bit odd that Moka just happened to have the same device that powered the school, but I didn’t really stop to think about what the connection was to her personally. It turned out to be very interesting as I think a lot of what they talked about as he threw Tsukune around was important, things such as which Moka was real, his feelings for her, and how he at one time feared her and so on. It was focused on some of the more serious deep stuff and I’m very happy about that, as the show had very little of it leading up to this point.

I was very surprised with how little Kokoa had to do with this episode. I thought a lot of the episode would be her trying to stand in Tsukune’s way, but really she did almost none of it. In fact the complete opposite happened and she showed signs of really caring about what happened to him, as she was crying when hearing him sustain all that damage. Although they never took that any further and haven’t really shown many signs of Kokoa caring for Tsukune or anything like that, it was still interesting to see because it was very different from what the previous episode seemed to imply.

Final Words:

This series was pretty much exactly as I expected it to be. This kind of show, this genre, isn’t usually thought to be much of anything, and honestly deep down it isn’t. Things that are filled with ecchi moments just for the sake of ecchi, and having continual slapstick comedy can’t really ever be considered seriously. However, they don’t try to be. Its one thing to say the show isn’t as good as another show, or you dislike it, but honestly this show never tried to be anything that was full of deep intellectual content. It was what it was, random fun with ecchi moments in a fairly unique yet uninspiring situation. And for an ecchi comedy, it was great. That’s not to say that compared to other shows this show is very good, but comparing it to others of its genre it stands up pretty well. There is some serious character develop and relationship development buried underneath a lot of the fluff content and when it comes though it makes the show very interesting.

I was slightly disappointed with the way they sidestepped the whole issue on who is the real Moka. Of course Tsukune’ is going to want to be with pink-haired Moka, since he’s always spending time with her, and of course he’ll say that even if the other Moka came first, he enjoys being with pink-haired, but it still doesn’t really address the issue. It’s almost like Tsukune is saying oh, who cares about all that serious talk about personal identity, lets ignore it. They could have some very serious discussion on how they are both the real Moka, that vampire Moka is a legitimate individual even if she is usually locked away, and pink-haired is legitimate even if she wasn’t original. Something how neither one of them is complete without the other one. Just…something. I was so disappointed when vampire Moka was just treated like a no one; they really should have legitimized her feelings and how both Moka’s co-existence was needed. I do give them some credit, as it was touched on a bit in Tsukune’s conversation with Moka’s dad, but not as much as it seemed appropriate for such a serious issue.

Moka sacrifices her rosario to restore the barrier, permanently allowing vampire Moka to be active.

Impressions:

I was very pleasantly surprised with this episode. I thought the issue that they would be dealing with for the final two episodes would be something very different. I thought it would be dealing with the barrier, with a war potential staring and kind of talking about the fears and prejudices between humans and demons. However they solved the issue of the barrier instantly. Still, I thought the topic of vampire Moka being “active” was a very interesting one.

I’m not quite sure what to think about what I want to happen. However, for the most part it seems obvious what will happen. Tsukune will of course get another rosario and then eventually the other Moka will return. However I think they are sidestepping the whole issue. Even if the other Moka comes back, and Tsukune becomes all happy there is still the issue with who the “real” Moka is. After all, the vampire Moka is still a character who has legitimate feelings. Plus, she’s effectively more real then the other one because she’s the original. I think that in order to really resolve this issue they have to really confront who the real Moka is and effectively say something along the lines of they are both real, and neither of them by themselves is full. I doubt they will ever merge the two of them together but effectively say that vampire Moka is the real Moka, but neither is the pink-haired one, they are only real together and so on.

Kyoko goes to Tsukune’s school to try and uncover its secret.

Impressions:

Wow, this episode was huge. It’s really the first episode of the entire season that is actually important in some regards. Everything else has been rather unimportant, some small character development bits and random ecchi slapstick comedy. But here they all of a sudden threw together a lot of aspects of good plot. First off we have Kyoko investigating the school which I just knew was bound to happen after the episode where she saw all of them fighting. That paired with Moka splitting in two and actually talking to her other half and learning that effectively both Moka’s like Tsukune. Then, to top it all off we have the boundary breaking, which was just casually mentioned before as being effectively an apocalyptic event. So, yeah, it was pretty damn big. They cold have taken any one of these three things and made several episodes out of them which would have been better then the fluff type stuff that they usually have. It almost gets me depressed when I see that there is some potential for interesting plot and complex feelings, they just hardly ever feature them.

I am curious how much Kokoa will be involved in the last bits of this season. Her arrival seemed like it was such an important thing and could lead to a lot of things, but for the most part it hasn’t’. Kokoa has just been a point of random comedy throughout most of the series or she’s the things that caused these unimportant random events to occur. There’s still some room for he and the dilemma about her “real” sister, but it’s going to have to take a back seat for sure because the boundary breaking is a pretty big thing.

A new student uses his powers to charm the girls of the school into becoming his slaves.

Impressions:

This episode for the most part was fairly ridiculous, in the standard way that most episodes are. It was kind of fun seeing all the girls fawn over this guy because of the cheesy talk and magic he kept using, though the episode was made even weirder by the revelation that the guy was the bat. The bat seems to be so unimportant, in the first season it was nothing more then a narrator, and here it did nothing but follow Kokoa around. Seeing him actually do something, anything was startling.

Still, this episode had a good deal of serious focus in it too. As the last episode did, this episode had some serious development for Kokoa which is great as she is the only hope for any overall encompassing story for this season. I think the topic of Kokoa realizing which Moka is her sister and so on is an interesting one, just so far it hasn’t really changed from Kokoa just denying that regular Moka is her sister. While it’s good to keep bringing up the point like they have been, time is running out and I hope they actually develop that point more.

Tsukune’s class takes a trip to a ski resort.

Impressions:

I thought this episode was pretty good. I’m actually a bit surprised that Mizore is getting so much attention. She’s already gotten her own episode with the curry episode. While this episode wasn’t solely hers, in fact it seemed to focus more on Kokoa, but more on that below, it still focused on her more then some others, introducing her father and so on.

The most important part of this episode though is definitely Tsukune’s interaction with Kokoa. This episode has really been the first to start taking her seriously. When she was introduced she was semi-important, but everything else up till now has just had her as a random comedic point. Here she really started to talk about her feelings for her sister, her sister’s identity, and Tsukune taking her away effectively. Hopefully this is the start of taking her more seriously. It’s not that I really like her character it’s just that so far she is the only thing that has potential for an interesting overall climax.

Many many things happen.

Impressions:

This episode was very confusing. It seemed like they could have done the whole episode without jumping from part to part. The whole overall idea was Ruby enforcing these rules and there was really no need to give the characters involved, like Gin and Neko-sensei their own parts. However I found it was interesting they did. Its not lie it was a bad thing, it was just very unexpected. As far as the episode itself, while the confusing bit give it some charm it didn’t feel like it was that great of an episode. Even though it somewhat focused on Ruby and kind of her affection for Tsukune and being jealous of the other girls, it still wasn’t quite as good as some other episodes.

The little segment at the end kind of surprised me. It was quite serious in its focus that something horrible and catastrophic would happen if something were to occur at the school. It almost seemed like this was setting up for the season climax where the barrier is going to be broken but everyone stops it or something like that. However that doesn’t take Kokoa into the equation at all and she still hasn’t gotten a lot of serious focus. Plus, from all I could tell Ruby and that other guy were trying to prevent the barrier from falling, so perhaps the only purpose that scene served was to show how Ruby got her magic back and effectively whys he is at the school. Either way it was unexpected.

The girls all stop by Tsukune’s mom’s house while still on the field trip.

Impressions:

I thought this episode was great. I was somewhat upset with this show for seemingly only doing the previous episode in the human world, when it could have had the potential for so much more. Here, they continued to use the human world and I’m really glad they did, because it turned out to be very interesting. It still didn’t mean anything too drastic, no big serious discussions about monster and human prejudice, but they still focused on the human world. Not only that but for the first time in a long time this series seemed to seriously focus on some of the romance aspects. Vampire Moka telling Tsukune directly he’ll eventually have to choose, Kurumu and Mizore fighting to the death over him, and then Moka learning about how much Tsukune talks about her. Hell, it’s the most romance development his show has had in the entire series, both seasons. It really was great.

One thing that they mentioned that I found REALLY interesting, but they didn’t really make a big deal about it was that Kyo, Tsukune’s cousin, said something about going undercover at the school to find out what’s going on. That definitely sounds like something that would fit this show perfectly and I would actually be surprised if at least the manga didn’t cover an event like that. I can understand if the anime doesn’t, as it can’t always cover all of the manga, but hopefully since they mentioned it in the anime, they will show it there as well. I think it could be pretty interesting. Ultimately though, I don’t see it making anything too drastically different. It will be good for one or two episodes of an interesting story, but still the story needs more serious focus on the romance to become better, which as I said did happen a bit in this episode.

Tsukune’s class takes a field trip to the human world.

Impressions:

This episode was alright, in fact it was one of the better episodes so far(which isn’t saying too much) but I find it a bit hard to REALLY like the episode considering it was such a bit waste of potential. I would think that an episode where everyone takes a trip to the human world would have a lot of potential for serious story to occur. Dealing with some of the issues of Tsukune being a human, dealing with some of Moka’s past experiences and how she came to hate the human world initially, and a general showing of prejudices between humans and monsters. That’s one of the plot devices that could easily be implemented into this series, and it would manifest itself perfectly in this situation, yet they didn’t even begin to touch on that. Hell, they didn’t even have any short gags about the girls being surprised or fascinated with things there, considering they may not be exposed to human culture a lot.

I’m also a bit surprised that Kurumu didn’t actually get her own episode this week. I mean, they even made a joke about it and broke the fourth wall with Kurumu saying how last week Mizore, and last last week Yukari, now it’s her turn. It almost started out like tit could be her episode, dealing with jealousy of Tsukune being with Moka, but there was practically nothing. I’m not sure if they are just postponing her episode or not, but I would be very disappointed if this was in fact, effectively her episode. She’s important enough that she deserves an episode a lot more centered on her then this one, especially since the others got one.

Mizore tries to show that she is capable of expressing her feelings like a normal person.

Impressions:

This episode is pretty much what I expected. Since Yukari got her own episode, and the preview even pretty much said the other girls wanted their own episode, so here we go. I always did like Mizore, she was at least different then someone who is openly fawning over the guy, being odd and stalking the guy, even though he knows she’s stalking him. In the end it did give a pretty nice message about her being fine the way she is, making the ice dish instead of trying to effectively being someone else and so on. I expect that sugar coated character development for others along the way too.

I’m hoping that after they focus on the individual characters, and I pretty much see only Kurumu as needing her own episode now, that they will focus on some more important stuff. I know I kind of shouldn’t be expecting anything grand from this show, as it is just an ecchi/slapstick/comedy but even if nothing important is focused on, I would like to see them focus on Moka and Tsukune, or at least a bit more on Kokoa or pretty much anything that could maybe become an important par of the overall plot.

Yukari worries about her physical appeal until someone helps to change her.

Impressions:

I loved this episode’s heavy focus on Yukari. Although in the first season they kind of had an introduction episode for each of them, beyond that they never focused on anything serious with them, so it’s nice to see that here. Although ultimately the “serious” aspect of this episode only came in at the very end, it was still there. I did think it was pretty nice for them to not have to show the formulaic kill this week’s bad guy thing. Although you heard it in the background, they didn’t show it which was actually nice because if you’ve seen one, you’ve really seen them all. It was fun seeing Yukari grown up like that, and very fun to see everyone’s response to it.

It did seem from the short tiny preview that there will be more individually centered character episodes, which I’m actually looking forward to. I pretty much expect them to be the same as this, 90% filled with fluff and then a short tiny lessen at the end that somewhat advances the character, but still its better then just an absolute fluff episode.