Ep by Ep.
Second Season
Ep 27. FILLER. Total fluff. GB, Kadz, Shido AND Himiko versus a single high-school girl. And the high-schooler wins. ……I was about ready to strangle her myself about 3 minutes into it, too. Though the ending where she asks Akabane for his email address was cute.
Ep 28 was once again, a filler. This one didn’t make me grind my teeth and wish to throttle people at least, but it did get a bit on the melodramatic side. I got tired of the BGM, too. Otherwise, there isn’t much to write home about in this one.
Ep 29
begins the Venus de Milo arc, YAY!! I giggled through the first 10 minutes,
what with the haggling war between Ban and Hevn, then Dolly Ginji. I’m
okay with the voices picked for Miss Hera, Mr. Ryuu and Natsuhiko, though none
of them look like they’re going to be spectacular. Akabane was, as
per usual, excellent. ^.^
The rest of the episode followed the gist of the manga, but somewhat vaguely.
Larger chunks are starting to get hacked out. Some of them, I have no
problem with. For some strange reason, the manga authors decided to make
GB rather brainless in this arc. In trying to infiltrate the cruiser,
they try the “delivery guy” route… some 20-odd times. ~_~;;
I'm glad that got chopped.
Some other parts cut out concern me. They’re little bits, but they
really explain some things; like the reason Ban ran from the fight with Akabane--
he’d come within an inch of getting a “J” carved into his back.
As it was, his shirt was cut nicely in that pattern. It probably
wouldn't have taken a minute if they had put it in, so why'd they leave it out
I wonder.
Ep 30.
Okay, I have some bones to pick, here. First off, Miroku …Brothers?
What happened to the other 5?? Sure, they don’t have that much
in the way of page time, but still!! And where’s the Specialist?
She’s supposed to give candy to all the guys as they get on the ship.
For all that it’s a little thing, the candy explains a lot of things
later. Shido and Emishi live without the rather stupid circus disguises
Emishi comes up with, but what’s up with that fight with Hyoko and Shakuryuu?
That’s waaaaay too soon.
Then there’s the biggest thing I don’t like; Ban still has 2 Jagan
uses left. In getting onto the ship he uses his last 2 (first was on Emishi),
that’s 1) why he’s so tired when he finally gets aboard, and 2) why
Akabane didn’t fight him. The way the anime did it is kinda odd and
really out of the blue without that background, and Ban comes off looking rather
pathetic.
Ep 31. Well,
things turned out generally how they were supposed to, even though there was
a lot more fudging of things here, there and everywhere.
Ginji’s escape from Miss Hera and Yukihiko (it should have
been Natsuhiko) was REALLY hard to swallow, though. Not that the
original version was that much more practical, but falling into the ocean with
only one useable arm and managing to swim clear?? I’ll take the motion-out-of-nowhere
and lucky-sword-stroke cutting ropes version, thank you.
Ban’s dream about Eris got cut out, too. Heck, Eris is never even
mentioned. Miroku is getting dangerously close to being reduced to Villain-of-the-Week
level here…
Ep 32 was disappointing. More than one cool fight got pared down to cheeziness. I think the only one that was still good was Akabane vs. Ban. I liked that one. ^___^ Shido and Emishi vs. the Bald Goons was so-so. All the necessary bits were there, they just could have presented it a lot better. Ginji vs. Miroku… That hurt. It was such a neat fight in the books. Sure, it’s going to be shorter since, well, 7 opponents got reduced to only 2, but Lordy did they butcher it. Natsuhiko and Yukihiko really did get dropped down to Villain-of-the-Week, Natsuhiko doing fairly little damage to Ginji before he gets KO-ed (as opposed to vaporized). It should have taken Raitei to beat him.
Ep 33 was REALLY disappointing. So many opportunities for so many cool things to happen, and the producers drop the ball on delivery. First off, no Raitei (dangit!!). Ginji beats Yukihiko with one big lightening burst and the Miroku brothers disappear, never to be seen or heard from again. Natsuhiko and Ban seem to have totally forgotten each other, and nothing‘s ever mention as to why the two know each other. Ban’s TV takeover should have been funny, too, but it came off pretty pathetic.