「Pandora Queen」

Seeing as I was expecting a date at the amusement park this week, the episode title struck me as rather odd. It only took me a few minutes in to quickly realize why, as we had an anime original episode centering around a yearly prom where Pandoras and Limiters get a chance to mingle. That’s what the West Genetics tradition is promoted as anyway, when in reality the Pandora Queen beauty pageant is the only thing that matters. Thus far, the anime has definitely upped the fan-service compared to the manga, and it looks like the producers pounced on yet another opportunity to promote Blu-ray sales by swapping out Kazuya and Satellizer’s cute and innocent date with a bunch of Pandora bearing it all on stage for the guys to gawk at.

While I would’ve liked to see the amusement park chapter animated, I’m pretty indifferent to the change given how the prom still developed their relationship in a positive way. As a sort of a bonus, we also had Rana taking the initiative and making sure Kazuya has her on his mind even if he’s set on being with Satellizer. It was amusing to see the two girls continue to knock heads, but even more so when Attia challenged Satellizer in the beauty pageant and was bent on winning by proving that bust size isn’t everything. For all intents and purposes, it was pretty clear that her reactions were intended to put a lighthearted spin on the entire episode, though it was still hard to perceive it as such after all the crap she’s put Satellizer through. Creo, Arnett, and Ingrid I don’t have any problems with, as they even think Attia has some screws loose. Sabotaging Satellizer’s winning outfit? Yeah, that’s real mature.

It may not have seemed like it with Attia’s hazing and Miyabi’s attempt to rig the voting, but I would still consider this a “calm before the storm” type of showing. There was a bit of foreshadowing on an upcoming Nova threat from Chiffon’s discussion with Kim and Elise, as well as Chiffon’s word of warning to Elizabeth that they should stop fighting with Satellizer to preserve the school’s battle power. Also, the preview shows East Genetic’s Cathy Lockharte (Kugimiya Rie) joining the front lines and battling Nova, which I presume means the story will finally move beyond the hazing and onto the threat from dimension invaders. This is roughly where I stopped reading the manga, so I’m actually curious to see what the series is like when the characters are fighting Nova instead of one another.

* There were so many shots to put together and some trickier than others. See images 03, 05, 06, 08, 10, 19, 24, 28, 35. If I had to pick a winner, I probably would’ve went with Rana and her Chinese outfit (if you can even call it an outfit).

 

Preview

60 Comments

      1. Freezing is a great story that has fan service. Quazar and Queen’s Blade to a lesser extent (I liked them both) were mostly fan service with a little story thrown in.

        High School Of The Dead was a great story that got lost in the fan service. All anyone remembers about that series is the shooting bullets between the girls breasts and legs and the slo motion bouncing. IMHO Freezing is the better of those 4 series that relied too much on fan service.

        Karmafan
    1. Agreed.

      A bunch of those shows traded in the story/character development (with a bit of fan-service at certain points) and such that made the stories good purely with fan-service which really hurt more than helped because, a lot of the time, it felt so random and out of place, and doing it SO often only brought them down more.

      Then again, with so many series being based on unfinished manga while only being around 12 episodes themselves these days, I guess they want to “time” things right so they can either end it on their own terms or at least get it to a point where they can more easily transition into a 2nd season.

      HalfDemonInuyasha
  1. Hmmm I thought that Cassie would have brown hair. Ohwell, it’s not like we have any other green haired pandora girl.

    Yay possibly the finishing arc and at the rate of how they went through material to get up to this point and how many chapters are left regarding the Nova invasion, i hope that this will be detailed and extensive.

    Shadiic
  2. Should have spent their time and budget animating more of the manhwa instead of creating this pointless fanservice filler episode. And it feels out of place in a anime where psychotic bloodthirsty girls are attempting to kill each other most of the time.

    At least it wasn’t a beach episode.

    Ninja Penguin
    1. But Freezing’s story more solid than Queen’s Blade. HSOD turned away from its main theme – zombies, and turned into romance and relationships. SnQ was just too complex for me. I love Freezing the most, and so far the anime adaptation is just.. great.

      acolyte
      1. Seikon no qwaser, sorry if I offend its fans, is not complicated, is just a nonsense. Have you see that episode where a huge musculated nun (wich everyone call her inferno’s tits xDDD) grabs every girl tits and make them spit milk and then tastes it? That’s what I mean.

        LoL
  3. Heh. A fanservice episode. As if we haven’t had enough yet.
    Show Spoiler ▼

    acolyte
    1. Based on what Divine said, this episode gave us some development with our couple and some story too. So despite the heavy fanservice, we still got something to expect next week. Not bad, in my opinion. :]

      Shirt
      1. The amusement park date would have been better I think. It would have been simple to add in this Ms. Pandora contest to it. Sucks that they are now moving straight to the invasion arc, though they could shoehorn in the date still next ep cause it’s barely a chapter. I hope the animators don’t go overboard on the fan service. This were the battles become “real”. Boobs flying in your face would ruin the atmosphere.

        kira-kun
    1. Show Spoiler ▼

      acolyte
  4. Looks like they did skip Satellizer’s past with Louis, and substituted with this fanservice episode, which I say isn’t bad at all. We will finally see some REAL fighting in the next episodes, and I am looking forward to that.

    swifty-nifty
    1. I wonder if they are gonna save the drama with Louis to a 2nd season. What happens next week should last at least 2-3 episodes. Time is running short if its a 1 cor season. Or Show Spoiler ▼

      Karmafan
      1. Actually Show Spoiler ▼

        Karmafan
      2. Yes, there is more to that story, but the flashback gave the same details as was given in the manwa at this time. The rest will come later when it happens and most likely in a second season or even OVA.

        znail
  5. It was rather painful to watch, and not only for the (needless) fanservice episode, but because it’s a wasted episode, why couldn’t just go to the interesting part (vol. 5-6)?
    I think the ridicolous low budget is also a reason…

    zazza
  6. Since this show is shonen-esque and some would-be school life aspects thrown in, I’m personally happy that kazuya seems to be gaining in the male lead development it seems, as slight as it is. Well, except when he’s around pretty/aggressive girls. Plus, the whole couple development is always good,too. That end with mass freezing and everything was a nice touch.

    1. Satellizer is quite ready to do anything for him. She even hinted so much in this episode that she was ready to do more then just kissing. The problem is that she is very shy so telling him will be an issue. He is of course oblivious to her change in attitude.

      znail
  7. What happened to the traumatic experience? Why did this have to be like all the others, Satellizer’s no touching problem could have lasted longer and developed better and in my opinion made her relationship with Kazuya not feel like main boy/main girl have to be together BS.

    fiorin
    1. They exchange Volt Textures, the genetic enhancements that have been embedded into their bodies. A Limiter is supposed to receive one that’s “grown” within the Pandora’s body and vice-versa.

      When they perform an Ereinbar Set, the Pandora’s powers are synchronized with her Limiter so that he can use Freezing. Satellizer doesn’t like it because the Pandora/Limiter pair can feel the bodily sensations of the other person when it’s activated, in a very sexual sense. i.e. It’s as if they were rubbing their bodies together.

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