Summary:

Dan and company arrive at a town where Eclipse has been performing, and by chance, Dan has a run-in with Rouge. She recognizes him and decides to make it look like she’s kissing him in order to get away from the fans chasing her. Dan is left in a daze after she runs off again, but he regains his composure and heads with the rest of the group to the hot springs. The pictures of the kiss soon make their rounds, and Dan gets hounded by fans and reporters about the supposed relationship. What’s more, the Eclipse girls announce that they’re forming a Basquash team, and Dan, Sela, and Iceman are their first opponents. Rouge entices Dan into participating by suggesting that Dan will become famous by defeating them and that he could go the moon.

When the time comes, the girls’ manager reveals that the time limit for the match will be the length of the song Running On. This amounts to five minutes and eighteen seconds, and Eclipse girls immediately demonstrate that they’re not pushovers. Dan’s team doesn’t go easy on them, but they still find themselves down by a score of 6-2. Iceman starts a comeback, but Dan misses one of his Destroy balls, and it hits Rouge’s Bigfoot instead. It looks like Rouge has been injured, so Dan rushes to her side and carries her to safety despite her protests that it was all a trap and that she’s their enemy. Since Rouge supposedly can’t sing anymore, their manager is ready to end the match early and declare Eclipse the winner in accordance with the rules.

To everyone’s surprise, Flora – still disguised as Allan – reveals herself to be a huge Eclipse fan, and she starts singing the rest of the song. She gets the crowd to join in, and in light of this, the Eclipse girls decide to keep playing, much to the chagrin of their manager. After a flurry of baskets, the score is tied 10-10, and Dan gets the last shot. He uses his signature move, but this time, it bounces on the rim and doesn’t go in. The game thus ends in a tie, and Eclipse’s manager is furious enough afterwards to slap Citron. Despite this, the girls had fun, and Rouge attributes it to Dan. On the other side, Haruka is bothered by how the feet of the Eclipse girls called out to her, and she suspects that there was something behind this match. Dan meanwhile dreams about Rouge and wakes up wondering why.

Preview

Basquash continues to surprise me by serving up another good episode. It helps, of course, that there was not one, but two insert songs this episode (though admittedly I felt having moon passport and a montage of characters in the middle was kind of gratuitous), and even Kugimiya Rie got in on the singing. The Eclipse girls make for some amusing rivals as well. It’s fun watching Citron fawn over Iceman because of the whole Ranka and Alto parallel, and despite the unoriginality of how it came to be, Rouge is an interesting and rather unexpected love interest for Dan to have. I find it odd though that Sela doesn’t really appear interested in him anymore, and Miyuki doesn’t seem to care too much either given how both seemed like possible matches early on. Maybe no love triangle after all for this series.

Anyway, out of the Eclipse girls, I think Violette is the one to watch out for – there hasn’t been too much with her yet, so she seems suspicious. Their manager is one of those annoying characters too, doubly so because he reminds me of a certain character from Yu-Gi-Oh, and I wonder what the ulterior motive is (i.e. is James using them). Regardless, after having been somewhat “meh” a few weeks ago about this series, I’m warming up to it again, and I hope it’ll keep getting better.

25 Comments

  1. i noted a scene in the OP where miyuki was crying, i think the love triangle is still possible. however, there probly wont be too much drama see as how Dan is a very…”straightforward”/stupid person.
    boobs jokes galore this episode also cuz of the hot springs.

    xcswmboy
  2. I’m sad Miyuki doesn’t serve a bigger purpose than to fix everyones machines. She’s the one who started this entire thing and so I thought Dan would like her, but I guess not. As for Sela, I figured she’d go for Iceman anyways.

    Rouge is pretty cute, but I’m a Miyuki fan through and through!

    Namu-chan
  3. So yeah, um that manager just bitch slapped that Eclipse member and they take it like a ritual.

    And jugs would look a lot better if she loses the glasses, and the hair parted to the sides.

    Oz
  4. still dont get how “destroy!” makes sense.. yeah, ok so it’s really a pass, but wtf does he wanna destroy? preconceptions and all that stuff??? pulling out my hair on how dan keeps missing!!!

    BROOKLYN otaku
  5. i stopped wanting to watch this show unlike the 1st poster. Too much graphics, not enough story. All this moon and basquash doesn’t excite me at all. I’ll be looking forward to your blogs and maybe the story will develop better. Just no time for mediocre shows.

    jho
  6. joh, I was skeptical about this for the first episode or two. But as the story as the show goes on, it keeps on getting better and better. I can safe to say it’s the one show I am most excited about this season.

    But then I am a big fan of Gurren Lagann.

    exe
  7. The animation is pretty. The story is weak. The characters are decent. The premise is ridiculous. I’m not bored, but I’m not excited, either. The characters and animation are driving this thing and I’ll watch to the end- assuming it’s 12 episodes.

    On a side note, could someone please tell me why Miyuki has that perpetual cheek band-aid? I like it and it fits her character, but I DO wonder every time I see it. Maybe someone here knows.

    JT-MI
  8. lol, I get why I love this show now, it’s so ridiculous and over the top that it’s awesome, just like Gurren Lagann was back in the day.

    Seriousness is fine and all, but honestly too much drama without the unadulterated awesomeness that is Basquash is unbearable.

    zxn666
  9. I’m puzzled at one thing, how did ‘Princess Flora/Alan’ manage to sing in a femimine voice in place of Rouge, and no one figured out ‘Alan’ is actually a ‘she’.

    Also agree with the above poster – Miyuki lacked any emotion/expression. ~

    Serra
  10. After reading this blog, I just marathoned it from episode 3 (Where I dropped it at several weeks ago~) and found it to be a surprising series. It’s true that it resembles Gurren Lagaan alot. Not sure about the Macross-like coupling though, but nonetheless I’m still excited about the way the couplings will turn out in the end especially after watching Rougue take a liking to Dan.

    Karatula3
  11. Serra- the same way she can get away with speaking in a feminine voice. Below 13, most boys and girls sound quite alike in pitch and tone. So much so you see women doing their voices in anime and American cartoons (Bart Simpson’s the most obvious example).

    No one’s answer my question about the Miyuki band-aid. Maybe it’s an actual mystery!

    JT-MI

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