Akuma no Riddle is an anime I talked about a long time ago. Turns out, they have a one episode special that takes place after the main story. So, let's have a look and see if it adds anything.
Story:
We open with the girls on a yacht heading for a school trip. When Nio takes the opportunity to crash the boat and start a little game. Each girl has a golden badge, save for Haru who has a red one. It's up to Azuma to protect her girlfriend's badge while the other girls try to take it to have a wish granted. They lose if they have their golden badges taken and whoever's holding Haru's badge when the sun sets wins. All the girls get into the game, save for Chitaru & Hitsugi who immediately exchange badges to go off and flirt as their wishes came true when they found each other.
The big issue with this as a follow up to the series proper is that there are a lot of things that happened at the conclusion of that series that don't really get addressed in terms of how they were resolved. Chitaru & Hitsugi running around all lovey dovey being a big one. Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely adorable and there is something compelling about a tall, strong girl having a relationship with a petite girl but I'm very curious about how they went from where they were as of the main series finale to where they are here.
This episode is also a great deal more light-hearted than the main series. The main conflict is just kind of silly and it's very obvious that most of the girls are just playing around. Which I'm a bit mixed on. While it can be helpful to wind down the action with a bit of a more light-hearted moment, it's also a bit weird aesthetically.
One major factor this does have going for it is that it's incredibly cute. Especially the Chitaru/ Hitsugi scenes. The special loves to cut to the pair of them just being very flirty.
Characters:
The characters are very much the same as they are in the series proper except with their darker traits played up more for laughs than used seriously. One thing I appreciate is that Haru is willing to lose the game since she's not actually in danger and she'd rather play in the loser's area but she keeps going for her girlfriend's sake. As Azuma is taking the whole thing far too seriously. The major characters do come across as highly endearing too.
Art:
The big issue with the art is that it delves too deeply into mindless fan-service. There are multiple scenes of the girls stripping each other. Even putting those scenes aside, they all spend the entire thing in their swimsuits. Which basically makes this the beach episode. If they hadn't kind of had it already with the whole buddy breathing episode. And, in all fairness, the series proper was also fond of fan-service. This just takes it a little further.
Sound:
The voice acting remains a very strong aspect of the series. And the music is still really good.
Ho-yay:
There's a lot. This is one of those anime where there just doesn't seem to be any straight characters. Even though Chitaru & Hitsugi get the bulk of the cutesy moments.
Final Thoughts:
This special is decent enough. It provides you with some extra fluff and some funny moments. With that being said, it's not a brilliant ending to the series. It doesn't add anything of substance. But if you just want some cute yuri moments, you'll be pretty happy with it. I'm giving it a 6/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment