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R2 DVD Reviews
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Tuesday, 05 May 2009 00:00 |
 Another two episodes of dimension-hopping fun for Arumi and Sasshi, with the third episode on the disc being an unusually serious diversion. Where's my slapstick, dammit..!?
5 - Extinction! Abenobashi Ancient Dinosaur Shopping Arcade
Another jump, another world that's not their own - and this time, prehistory beckons for Sasshi and Arumi. Given that dinosaurs are one of Sasshi's pet interests, this could turn out to be a good thing. Even if the place isn't quite historically accurate. Their misadventures take them to the stone-age Abenobashi, where the local cavemen and women, ruled over by the local version of Sasshi's sister Sayaka, have issues with Arumi's new pet triceratops. Fortune-telling predicts that it will lead to the downfall of the land, but Arumi's not about to hand her pet over for such flimsy reasons - a stand that soon lands them in trouble. Just as well that Mune-Mune's around to come to their rescue, then...
6 - In the Night Fog! Abenobashi Hard Boiled Shopping Arcade
Arumi and Sasshi had hoped that making an offering to the goblin that transported them between worlds would finally get them home, but no such luck - they've appeared in film noir land, complete with a city filled with fog, gangsters, and mysteries to be solved by our newly-arrived duo. Sasshi finds himself taken in by his crime-lord grandfather, who's mistaken him for a legendary hitman, while Arumi ends up in the local police force as part of an operation to bring the gang in. With the two friends now on opposite sides of the law, this isn't going to end well, right..?
7 - Flashback! Magical Shopping Arcade Birth
While Grandpa Masayuki lies in his hospital bed, he's got time to think - back to before the Pelican Grill was opened, to when the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade was just a set of urban renewal plans, and to when he was busy chasing after Mune. One of the urban planners working in the area was Mr Abe (who bears more than a passing resemblance to Eutus), who was Masayuki's chief rival for Mune's affections. Abe and Masayuki ended up working together on the Shopping Arcade, though, and it was Abe's insistence on including certain elements in the plans that may have something to do with Sasshi and Arumi's world-hopping now...
Right. The first two episodes here are more of the usual whacked-out fun that Arumi and Sasshi have been serving up for a while now - firmly what you'll expect from Abenobashi by now, and full of the usual stream of movie references and over-the-top fanservice to keep you amused. Great fun, in a way that really doesn't need much written about it (and with a little hint thrown in there, in an offhand and slightly misleading kind of way, to what's really going on). Then it all goes a little bit awry.
The final episode, you see, doesn't feature the dynamic duo at all. Instead, we're back to the "real" world, and to a little run up and down the timeline to look at Masayuki and his connection to Mune and Eutus. Eutus, in case you've missed it, is the show's other dimension-traveller, and can usually be found getting Arumi and Sasshi out of trouble somewhere along the line. A far mnore serious element is being added to the story here, and I'm not sure I like it.
GAINAX, you see, have this awful tendency to start shows in fun, mindless ways, before losing their way halfway through and deciding that there needs to be a point, something meaningful to give the show a reason for being. They did it with Evangelion, where the late-season diversion into the Human Instrumentality Project ruined - for me - what had been a perfectly fun and shallow giant robot show. ::wait to be struck by lightning for heresy:: They also did it with His and Her Circumstances, although was more a case of just losing interest halfway through and not bothering anymore. So now we have Abenobashi, and a gear-grinding chance of focus from inter-dimensional mayhem to a more thoughful history lesson that, while interesting as far as it goes, isn't what I was watching the series for, and I feel ever so slightly cheated.
One flower doesn't make the spring, however, and one out-of-place episode doesn't ruin the series - this voluem overall is still decent fun to watch. We've also still got two volumes to go and plenty of time for GAINAX to not mess it up. For some reason, though, I'm not holding my breath...
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