I do wish that the creators would show more of Chiko, improving her 1337-skills. Walking on a tight rope isn’t something you just learn overnight, and while I can understand that it’s perfectly possible for Chiko to learn this within a year, I’d much rather see her gradually mastering this skill, instead of vaguely hinting at this in the ED and assuming that the viewers will assume that she has been practicing a lot in the gaps between the episodes. I’m not asking for Dragon Ball Z-length training arcs (that would be pretty bad, actually), but right now this is the big (but also the only) weakness of this series.

Having said that, this series is really picking up steam now, though it does so very subtly. This episode finally introduces a pair of enemies that actually have the potential to cause Nijuu Mensou and Chiko some serious trouble, as they demonstrate by poking Ken’s eye out. That’s a twist I totally didn’t see coming at this stage of the series.

In this episode, Nijuu Mensou attempts to steal a large strange statue, under the cover of a circus troupe. He really demonstrates again how he’s an attention-whore, because he tries to create an as big spectacle as possible whenever he appears. In that way, he’s really different from Chiko, who’s a much more straightforward person.

Excellent, Chico is already growing up, and this episode skips ahead one year. This episode did well in just being believable enough. While it’s a bit hard to believe that in just one year, Chico would turn from a fragile girl who always stayed in bed into a master knife-thrower and how she has no problems with holding onto a rope for so long, the creators did handle her fighting-abilities very nicely. One year of intense practice should be just enough to learn how to execute a basic judo-throw, and a kick in the groin by a cute girl should always be enough to throw an unsuspecting guy off-guard. Although I do admit that it’s a bit hard to believe that a fully grown and trained man would get knocked out just from falling down a bunch of stairs.

I do wish that the creators showed Chico practicing her lock-picking skills a bit. That rather came from out of nowhere, when Chico was in the elevator and suddenly disconnected the suitcase that was attached to one of the policemen by a pair of handcuffs like it was nothing.

One thing that’s interesting to note is how Chico may be a child genius with all the intention to be better, she does lack experience. Right now, she’s moving forward and forward, though this has to end somewhere. She has a lot of book-wisdom, but there will be a point where her confidence will shoot her in the foot. I guess that when Nijuu Mensou disappears, it’ll have a pretty interesting effect on everyone, and I commend this series’ ability to build up for this.

I must say that this series is getting more interesting with every episode. The first episode was a huge disappointment for me because it didn’t really show the thought-pattern behind Nijuu Mensou’s plans, though thankfully the past two episodes have put a much bigger emphasis on planning and back-ups, in case something goes wrong. With this episode, I finally see that Nijuu Mensou isn’t inhumanly strong or smart. He’s just paranoid and a perfectionist.

I can indeed see why Chico will end up as Nijuu Mensou’s successor. Due to the way she’s raised, she’s ended up rather paranoid as well and doesn’t take anything for granted, and yet she’s willing to work hard for the person who saved her. This episode mainly meant to bring her a bit closer to Nijuu Mensou’s crew, and flesh out the different characters a bit.

What I’m waiting for right now is to see the always-composed Nijuu Mensou screw up. Obviously, this has to happen sometime, and I’m rather eager to see Chico, as she takes over his position. It’ll be interesting to see Chico evolve, and meet the other two girls we see in the ED. Like I said before, I like series that don’t play all of their trumps in the first episode.

Out of all the series that aired this spring-season, Nijuu Mensou no Musume was the series that I had the most doubts of whether it was worth blogging or not, even more than Toshokan Sensou. The first episode was really bad for my suspense of disbelief, and yet it seemed to scream “potential”, unlike the mentioned-above Toshokan Sensou. Thankfully, the second episode was a lot better, so I’ve decided to blog this. I’ve always seemed to end up with 12 series each season as well. It’s a nice number that manages to cover enough different series without being overwhelming for myself.

This episode wasn’t perfect by far. Yet again, I spotted some scenes that didn’t make too much sense:
- Why didn’t the police leave one of their men behind to guard the treasure, in case of a decoy? Were they that stupid? They seemed to have more than enough men for it.
- The creators need to watch a bit more discovery-channel: shooting the tires of a car does NOT make it magically stop. It just makes the ride bumpier and the car needs to go to the repair shop afterwards, but it can just drive further without any problems.
- This is the same question I asked after the first episode: why has nobody who’s against Nijuu Mensou ever gotten the idea of using some kind of flying-device as well? I admit that it’s a pretty neat way to escape ground-forces, but if that zeppelin were to be assaulted by a (say) aeroplane, it’d be screwed. Of course, this is just my guess. Seeing the wit of this episode, I can imagine how Nijuu Menshou has found some tricks against this. It’d be interesting to see that in action, though.

That’s one of the reasons why I decided to blog this: the faults may be faults, but it’s interesting to point them out, much more than in usual series. What’s attracted me the most in this series is the character-development, though. Not only in Chico’s case, but this episode also showed a much more interesting side of Nijuu Mensou. His crew also gained a lot of depth, and came across much more believable. What I’m hoping for now is for this series to actually show the background of this Nijuu Mensou: how did he become so awesome in thievery? Especially since you can nearly hang a sign on his neck, saying: “Hello, I’m about to get killed off”.

Golgo 13

Well, this turned out better than expected, but that may also be because I expected nothing from this series anyway. Golgo may have a laughable name, but it does have a certain style. The soundtrack is effective, though I feel that the manga-chapters don’t really fit the 24-episode formats. In this episode, the only thing that Golgo does is that he comes, he shoots, and then he leaves again. The creators clearly struggle with filling up the remaining 23 minutes of this episode so they just show a random sex-scene. I hope that the future assignments for the guy are a bit more challenging to overcome; otherwise it’d make a pretty boring series. Still, this series has no real flaws so far, apart from the fact that Golgo’s character-design makes it looks like he’s suffering from a bad case of constipation.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki

Boy… the shounen-comedies sure are dull this season. I’m sick and tired of females that rely just on their energy and moe-ness to deliver comedy. Really, a series needs more than that to be funny, and still there are heaps of series that don’t seem to understand this. Kyouran Kazoku Nikki at least tries to add this extra substance though its side-characters and I guess that they do have potential, but really, how many times haven’t we seen male lead X being beaten up and abused by the female lead? Is it really that hard to come up with something original?

Nijuu Mensou no Musume

Ah, too bad. I had high hopes for this series, being animated by Bones and all, but in the end this one turned into a big mess. This series has nice action and screenplay and all, but it’s mercilessly shatters your suspense of disbelief within the first minute of this episode. This is indeed the problem with thief-series: they’re portrayed in a way too elegant manner. When you steal something, you’re supposed to be hiding in the shadows, making use of the flaws in security, not just use a zeppelin to lift the roof of a building. Again it’s just one character who ruins the entire series. I mean, Chico was nice to watch, the henchmen were very interesting, but that thief… I still can’t believe that the creators were serious with that guy.