First thing’s first: I’m the plain old normal text and Matt is bold for obvious reasons!
Second – How is it that Matt gets the AMAZING flashback episode, on of the best of the season and I’m stuck with the filler? I smell foul play….
It’s almost like they knew how much you liked fan service and threw you a beach episode and then forgot to make it good… or to put in faservice…

Honestly though, this episode really played out like something you would get as an extra on a fan CD! Everybody just shows up at a remote location by coincidence? It was even structured like an extra. With lots of short vignettes separated by eyecatches rather than an episode plot. Fan CD? I don’t know what that is felt like a cheaply made OVA to me (probably not much difference right? Splitting hairs…)
Matt did you notice how bad the art was? All the characters looked kinda ratchet, especially poor takato who was barely recognizable at times. I think the only one who retained their art quality was not-Junta. It was terrible and not even in a ‘My Sister, My Writer’ “how are faces made” kind of way—this just stunk of an episode getting rushed out so they could focus more time on the previous and (hopefully) the next one.
The animation was pretty poor as well. There were so many still shots of that beach it got funny and scary at the same time. And that volleyball match was just sad. They completely lost their proportions for a bit there. I will say though, the sand looked pretty not CGed. Extra points for that! I’ll take CG sand over whatever the heck this episode was doing anyway, but then again I’m not the one who seemingly has PTSD about it…
Even their personalities were like cheap knock off versions of themselves. Like they were acting the parts of their characters in a holiday variety special! “Live from beautiful Hawaii, it’s the DAKAICHI beach party!” Have you ever seen the old Star Wars disney dance party show? Like that!
I know I’m making it sound horrible (and this episode was not good) but it’s not like I hated it and it definitely did not take anything away from the show so far. It just seemed out of place, like I was watching a different series. I’ll go ahead and say it, I hated it. It felt like such a drastic dip in quality on all fronts that I felt like the whole thing was just a waste of time.
It was pretty useless. In fact I think it only rejoined the plot in the last minute when we saw the photographer again. Otherwise we could have thrown everything out and it would have had absolutely no impact on the rest of the series.
It felt like they had a notice board in the production office that had every idea for a beach episode and because they were in such a hurry to get this episode out rather than form a cohesive narrative they just did every half-baked idea on the board. The only thing I did like was how many of those superfluous eye-catches there were—and by like I mean I was in hysterics at how many there were. Had this episode happened earlier in the season I might have been more okay with how bad it was or able to laugh at it more but nope, not having any of it! Of all the shows I’m watching (excluding the ones I dropped) this was the worst episode of any anime this fall season!
Oh good, I was a little scared that you would LOVE this since we usually have almost opposite tastes. Although, it could have been interesting to see you try to defend this thing. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll have plenty to disagree on in the future! I look forward to it!
Now that we’ve had our little holiday, I certainly hope we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming next week!!

It was Matt’s brilliant idea to put all those eye catches in to give you a true taste of the episode (and these are but a mere sampling). I did take other screencaps though:
Dude shut up…why are you so upset about the episode, yeah it’s a bit of a filler, all animes have them. It was still great regardless. Why so critical?
Really is it? I didn’t think it was that critical
In other words, It’s a Filler Episode.
There are good filler eps, or at least watchable ones. This was not
Jeesh. It’s just supposed to be a cute lil episode between the drama. You guys suck. It’s really not that serious.
Full disclosure, the idea to put heaps of eye-catches in this review was Sharon’s not mine. But it came out really well, Irina. Definitely made me laugh and (not-so) fondly remember the episode!
Sharon should have éditorial say on all our posts
Again. You guys are so hyper critical. Why? I hate all these review blogs that feel so uppity and criticize every single thing that isn’t exactly as they want. Not pleasant at all. And you’re all the same 🙄
Arthifis and I had a very similar conversation about this episode at the end of our most recent chat about this series. The post will be out Thursday but yeah, this episode was just such a waste of time and it actually made me say that I thought fan service would improve it. I don’t think I’ve ever said that about anything.
The should have just skipped a week and saved the ressources. I’m not sure that all anime have the pleasure to do that