TAB: Tom's Anime Blog

Well, we're now roughly 7 weeks into the spring/summer anime season, so I think it's time to take another look at the series I've been watching.

With episode 7, This Ugly and Beautiful world looks like it's finally getting out of a character exposition mode, and perhaps beginning to start a story. (Although the next episode preview shows a festival episode) In this episode, the gang goes to work at a beach restaurant. This places them in a position for fan-service and aquatic monster attacks. Unlike the pervert crab from Mahoromatic, however, this monster is really nasty. Evil Hikari makes another appearance, and Takeru finally gets around to transforming again. There is also much kissing, both direct, indirect, and lesbian play-acting.

I'm still wating for this series to turn. We're getting quite a few episodes, showing the characters in their happy, vaguely normal lives, which I expect to be shaken up any time now. One thing I've realized is how important it is to get the audience to sympathize with the characters before the series darkens up.

This series has a mix of interesting characters and interchangable ones. It's interesting to see what's up with the core cast of Hikari, Takeru, Akari, and Ryou, and I like the antics of Takeru's cousin and Ryou's sister as they sorta mess with the happy couples. I'm still not sure what the deal is with the drunk scientist Jennifer Portman or the unwittingly drunk robot Ioneous. The cast is rounded out by a few undistinct characters, including four classmates (two male and two female) and two parent characters.

My favorite episode so far has been episode five, when Hikari goes to school and causes summer vacation to start a few weeks early.

I'm looking forwart to see how this series goes, to see what happens to the core cast as the plot begins to twist. Of course, since it's a GAINAX series, I'll probably dislike the ending... but getting there will probably be worth it.