The game is underway!
What They Say:
The game that will determine the fate of the Game Creation Club (Provisional) is on! If Kazama thought his club members were monsters, he hasn’t seen anything yet. The ex-Student Council is going to give them a run for their money.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Having Kazama, aka Princess Pinch, kidnapped again in the previous episode for slights placed upon the upper classmen by what happened in the sprawling campus wide game situation several episodes ago, we now get a challenge that exists between the two sides. With a focus on games, naturally it’s a game that will determine how things will go. Much like we’ve seen before, the fate of the Game Creation Club is on the line, though it’s amusing that Takao ends up participating in it a bit herself, even coming up with the game that will be used to settle who wins. There’s a lot of passion for saving the club here, and you are left wondering at times if they put the same kind of passion into their actual school work.
With the way this starts to play out, we get the usual kind of arguing and bantering in order to gain position, but a lot of it comes down to the physical comedy itself. Which is pretty good when you have Kazama in a situation where, because of her injury, he has to carry her around for it in order to work. There’s a lot of mean girls kind of stuff going on here with how they’re all interacting with each other and even seeing Takao getting taken down in a way, a maiden left on the battlefield in the view of the others, is definitely well done and amusing to see. What’s interesting to see is that for the first half, the show doesn’t get quite as frantic as you’d expect with the nature of the game and how they’re going after Kazama and Roka. It’s got some busy moments, but it’s not as frenetic as one might expect.
Because of this, it has the potential to be more amusing than just pure slapstick, but with the kind of awkward and overly complex game that was set up for them to play, it doesn’t really click well. Instead, you basically get the kids running around and getting caught up in traps by the competing students who want to get some long sought after revenge. It works well enough in a very simple way, but with the nature of the show being one that hasn’t really made the characters stand out themselves – especially all these new introductions in the previous episode – you end up just watching it in a very disconnect way. There’s humorous moments to be sure and the physical comedy works nicely, as does some of the mild fanservice, but in the end it’s just kind of washing over you.
In Summary:
The game is most assuredly underway, but as I’ve felt for the last few episodes, it’s getting pretty hard to care. D-Frag has a decent if modest setup with what it wants to do and it has some familiar trappings, but it’s execution is just minimal as there’s not much to latch onto here with the characters. It’s a show that reminds me more of material aimed at a much younger audience with the belief that if we run around a lot, fill it with bright colors, and add wacky music, it’ll all work out in the end. There’s definitely fun moments to be had, but the empty calories concept keeps coming back to me with this one, especially with an episode like this.
Grade: C
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.