If you’ve read my posts for the first season, you’ll know that I wasn’t the anime adaptation’s biggest fan. I have multiple gripes with how it was adapted so I’m honestly not sure why I’m still continuing this coverage. Probably out of morbid curiosity that will most likely make me regret my decisions, but I digress. With that said… Why are we starting here??? I wouldn’t have a problem if this series was directed in a more comedy based way, like with how Kaguya-sama was done. However, since the first episode, I noticed that this series is focusing on the overarching plot and action when that’s not the main focus of this series. Due to most of the manga chapters essentially being a one shot of sorts, the pacing for the anime feels really wonky. And this episode made it very evident to me that they have not learned their lesson.
As soon as they showed Yor out on her assassin mission I was like: Oh no… this is the part where she gets shot in the butt. And once I realized that I was very confused as to why they would choose this for the episode to be the start of the new season. It felt like a very odd choice especially when this episode felt like a more middle of the season or even second episode type of episode. It was a very silly episode, but… it definitely felt like they stretched it out way too much. In the manga, the comedy was much more snappy especially in the montage of Yor standing everywhere Loid took her. But in the episode, it felt like all the moments were unnecessarily drawn out and it didn’t hit as hard as when I read it in the manga. Though I feel like this has just been an ongoing issue with the anime as a whole where they focus on the wrong things and missing the point to certain comedy parts.
Anyways, I will admit that Loid being incredibly dense when it comes to Yor is really funny in general. The fact that he immediately thinks she’s in a bad mood is like: She’s in PAIN my dude. Even Anya is like “yeah, he’s completely off the mark.” It’s hilarious to me how much of an enigma, both Anya and Yor are to Loid as despite his great intelligence, just never seems to fully get them and the two are constantly throwing wrenches into his carefully thought out plans. Which just shows how much he still needs to grow as a person and it is always entertaining to see the usually calm and composed Loid lose it because nothing is going according to plan. Especially how he freaked out over Yor being in a bad mood again the next morning.
As someone who is incredibly intolerant to pain, I just felt so bad for Yor having to just try to go about her day while in excruciating pain. But even then, she forces herself to go out on a date with Loid because she needs to experience it to help her cover. I will admit, my favorite part of this episode was when the waiter who was part of the group she assassinated gave her a glass full of blowfish poison only for her to just numb her body enough where she didn’t feel the bullet wound anymore. Of course Yor would be resistant to all kinds of poison. And I just love how Anya just has the face of “I should have known” after she was panicking about Yor drinking it. She definitely underestimated Yor’s strength for a split second only to be reminded by what a beast she is lol.
Another relationship that is always a pleasure to see is Anya and Franky. It’s honestly hilarious how Franky, despite him acting as if he doesn’t care about her, will always go along with a lot of her shenanigans. The two literally are on the same wave length in terms of mischief. It’s honestly endearing to see. Also the fact that he went as far as to infiltrate the freaking restaurant THROUGH THE VENTS NO LESS to continue Anya’s spy mission. He really has taken the role of the fun uncle and it’s glorious. Franky on his own is a bit of an annoying character to me, but paired with Anya, their interactions just make him a lot more likable. Especially since he is naturally a very selfish character, but when he humors Anya, it feels like he’s actually thinking of someone else.
Anya actually has a rather epic moment in this episode despite me still not being able to take her that seriously. She was actually able to emulate Loid in a way with all the traps she laid out for the waiter. Not to mention put together a functioning bomb which is like: this child needs closer supervision. It was pretty funny how they bleeped out the ingredients the guy was planning on using since I’m sure they didn’t actually want to list out how to make a freaking bomb. I got a good chuckle from the how off key the music sounded while Anya was playing out teaching the waiter a lesson.
Overall… this was a pretty weak season premier if I had to be honest. It felt so weird for this to be the chapter they adapted to kick off the new season. It felt out of place and I don’t think this scenario should have been the ENTIRE episode. It felt more like a half an episode type of scenario. Not to mention I did notice that there were a lot of moments where it felt like the scene had an oddly long pause. The pacing just felt off the entire episode and the comedy in this episode definitely didn’t hit as hard as it did in the manga. I still had chuckles, but not as much as I did when reading it. I’ll continue the coverage out of morbid curiosity but man, they aren’t making it easy.
My guess is they’re going to focus on the comedic episodes first before going to the serious arc. You know, the calm before the storm thing. Maybe they’re planning to end this season or the first cour of this season with the Cruise Ship arc. Starting it weak, ending it strong.
That aside, Loid and Yor really need to learn to communicate more. If they want to make their fake marriage work out, then they should talk things out like how a real husband and wife do instead of making their own assumptions that resulted with misunderstanding. At least, I’m still happy to see Loid x Yor moment near the end of their date. (^_^)
Episode 2 will be in a double post with Episode 3 next week!