Ok, so this episode admittedly surprised me with how it managed to not get worse than the previous.
This episode some intelligence on the part of the creator, as he actually uses knowledge of how chess works and sports in general to say something. The problem with this is that not only does it say something so blatantly obvious, but it feels like it had to ditch the characters entirely in order to say it.
This episode is still ok at best, but the fact that it had to point out so many of its themes goes to show how much it lacks in subtlety, to the point where it broke like every character, except for those who really didn't get much focus otherwise.
Ai is nine-years-old, and guess what, a nine-year-old doesn't give a monologue about their feelings of frustration after losing a match, with everybody in the room quietly staring at her. If a nine-year-old is that in touch with their feelings that not only can they give an in-depth speech about their emotions, but also do so in front of their opponent and with people silently staring at them, then that nine-year-old must have more maturity than most adults (and as we all know, Ai isn't the closest thing to mature, SHE EVEN RAN AWAY THIS EPISODE).
I guess there were also themes of jealousy and how Sis is jealous of Yaichi and so is his old master that raised him, and so is Ai? Ok, nice try, but that's not exactly how jealousy works, and the whole jealousy thing was obvious as hell. The problem with this is that his old master could have been jealous of him because he was growing faster than he expected (this part isn't bad), Sis has feelings for Yaichi because she loves him (still not bad), but she is jealous of his disciples? This implicitly paints both Ais as equivalent to Sis as a romantic interest, but the key difference between Sis and the old master is that the old master may have been feeling threatened, and he wasn't jealous out of a feeble emotion like love. Still, the show tries to play it off as the same things, so the next is the jealousy Ai has for Yaich, which is presented to be a mix of both types of jealousy, only its flipped on its head? (Here lies the true issue) Ai's jealousy is that of a student not getting enough attention from her master because he is seeing another student- but her blatant attempts to prove that he is closer to him than his other student not only crosses the Teacher-Student line (the distance that a teacher and student should be for a mutually educational relationship), but it leaves a thematic disconnect in the story. Ai isn't (supposed to be) in love with Yaichi, but since she breaks this line and the series associates Sis' love for Yaichi (her romantic interest) as the same Ai has for Yaichi (Her teacher), it disconnects the narrative from its roots. The narrative thinks its making jokes about lolicon tendencies and how they are ridiculous, but in reality, it is using lolicon tendencies to draw its audience and doing nothing to capitalize on that. In that way, the addition of these jokes just feel distracting, or out of place and it's dragging the series down (even messing up the consistency of the major characters in the story).
This series is supposed to be about Yaich training Ai to become a female professional, and while it did take a step in that direction this episode, I can tell you ten places where it took a step back, to the detriment of its own characters. And we wasted a lot of time in taking that step too.
All of this doesn't mean it can't make a rebound in the upcoming episodes, but right now, I'm not exactly holding my breath.
3/5
*Actually more of 2.5/5, but I'll round it up for the sake of it. |