Daijoubu

Yes, plot. In spite of all the silliness, these animes have plots, right? These plots are in the process of developing and getting to the fourth week of a new season, it’s worthwhile considering how things are developing in terms of story, character and pacing.

Kampfer 04: By the fourth episode of Kampfer, we can clearly see a focus developing. Interestingly, it has nothing to do with the fighting aspect of the show. While the student council president was introduced as a dangerous enemy and fought our heroines in ep. 2, she seems to be content to give up powerful physical attacks in favor of more normal romantic trouble-making. Ep. 3 devoted itself to creating a love triangle and this week that theme has only been intensified, with next week seeming to be more of the same. This approach is, indeed, very common in anime: give the setup in the first episode or two and then switch to character relationship complications. The ultimate goal is to get us all to care about these characters and enjoy their antics, so that when combat actually begins in earnest, we will get all broken up about it. We can only hope that the actual fighting, when it comes, is worth the wait. I would have to say, though, that with this series, the formula is not balanced quite right. The action scenes were good, especially in ep. 2, but the nature of the characters’ situation was hardly touched on. It’s like, theres moderators and guts-spilling-plushies and lets get on to the yuri. There are not enough hints of a larger story to make viewers care. However, I do find the relationship stuff amusing enough for now, but why does the fighting just stop?

Railgun 04: OK, I have to admit that this episode was great. The first three were average, with the extreme emphasis on yuri unbalancing the second episode; but in ep. 4 the balance between action, comedy and even tsundere romance was perfectly handled. It’s not only that the production values in Railgun are better than Kampfer; Railgun has introduced characters while also hinting and foreshadowing things better. The guy in this episode was foreshadowed in ep. 3 and now we have a new an mysterious undressing character. Interest in the future of the series has been successfully created. The first four eps of Railgun do different things though, so there is a bit of unevenness in the overall development thus far. 01 introduced the basic setting, but 02, with its excessive focus on one theme, probably came too soon in the series run. 03 seemed like an enemy of the week kind of thing, but now, in 04, we get two important character introductions, each bringing in new concepts with them about the nature of the characters’ abilities in this world. But, like I said, it was an awesome episode with super-cute blushing and funny facial expressions scenes with the characters (including the one pictured above).