Astarotte no Omocha Episode 06 - Caret of Confusion

Some people might be wondering why, if this blog is really about forcing myself to sit through all of Sailor Moon, do I keep watching other shows as well? It really all boils down to one very simple reason, you see:

I need something to remind myself that, as bad as Sailor Moon might get sometimes... it is very, very far from the bottom of the barrel. Case in point? Astarotte. Oh god this show. Are we really only six episodes in? Because it feels like it's been far longer than that.

On the bright side, this means we're just about halfway there...

So it's a lovely day in the neighborhood, and Lotte gets a letter. It's a ticket to an amusement park! Just the thing any little princess would want to get. There are two tickets, of course, and she immediately imagines herself having fun with Naoya at one.

Of course before she can ask him, he gets called off to go help in the garden, and she finds herself in an awkward position of wanting to ask a man to go do something with her. A man that totally isn't her dad but is her half-sister's dad so that's still some weird form of incest, right?

After the OP, our little princess is upset about something. What is this something? Why, everyone else is messing with her toy. Yes. Toy. She refers to Naoya as her toy. Which, when you consider the fact that he is, in fact, the first member of her harem this takes on a completely new connotation that is incredibly distressing. Though not exactly surprising, considering the whole point of her having a harem in the first place.

That moment where you wonder if she really understands
exactly what it is she is saying.

But then someone asks the obvious question: What does she need him for?

Oh it's one of those problems? Give it eight years.

Lotte then starts babbling to her own servants and suddenly realizes what she's doing, and yells at her servants to get back to work. Then Judit comes up with a brilliant idea: Maybe she should put a collar on him.

... considering this is coming from someone clearly into BDSM, I'm not sure this is really the best idea.

HOLY CHRIST THEY WENT THERE.

Lotte demands to know where he is right this moment, and he happens to be... kind of running an errand for Judit. Whoops. Guess she's just as guilty of using and abusing him as everyone else. Who knew? Evening rolls around, and Lotte is about to pop. Naoya hasn't come back and... well.

That's some rage.

Finally he gets back in the middle of the night, and he goes to Lotte's room in the middle of the night to apologize for being so late. Something about the 'milk lady', and him being 'unable to refuse'. Then there's a cartoon playing, which he decides to start watching.

It is called, the Adventures of Striped Panty Man. Who is talking to a girl that he asks to "wear my face!" Then someone called "Brief Man" shows up, and all we get to see is Naoya taking this in. But I'm sure you don't believe me. So let me prove it to you.

Yo dawg, I herd u liek bad anime, so I put bad anime
in ur bad anime so you can lose your mind while
you lose ur mind.

After turning the TV off, he goes upstairs to find that Lotte isn't there either. There is, however, something incredibly disturbing.

... I think I need an adult.

There's a nice little note from the princess accusing him of being a womanizer, which is a thing that shouldn't matter to her at all because she is TEN GODDAMN YEARS OLD. This only prompts him to begin the search with everyone else all over the castle grounds trying to find her. Meanwhile, over at that big ol' Christmas tree of doom, she's all sitting there with the tickets getting huffy about him being her toy and not being around and flashing her panties at the camera without a care in the world.

Eventually Naoya gets the right idea and heads over to the tree, and she spends her time running back and forth, trying to avoid him, but he finds her anyway. He's all like "everyone is worried" and she's all "you're never there when I want you to be, and you always come when I don't want you to" and all I can say is, my god, I hope that's just a translation slip-up because that could really be taken the wrong way.

Though given the point of the show, I'm not really sure it should be taken any other way.

She then orders him to go back home, and he's all "we should really go back together" and she makes the comment, "You really think it's that easy to make me feel better?" So he asks the obvious question: What do? To which she replies:

A typical angry woman answer. -_-

Then she says he should just go back to Midgard, and the tree is all "hokay!" and opens the gate, dropping a magical clover down to whisk her away. Then we get the commercial break and she wakes up in a bed somewhere in Midgard. First thing she does upon waking up? Drop her drawers. Then things get really weird, because even though she's in Midgard, it would seem that she has some Keebler frickin' elves doing everything for her, from bringing her clothes to setting her food on the table.

But do they also make cookies?

As she's about to eat, the phone rings, and she chooses to ignore it while Naoya calls the house... from... his cell phone.

... wait what? How does he even know where she went? YOU ARE STUCK IN THE OTHER WORLD.

But Judit has the answer, and it comes in the form of  a crystal ball. Those Keebler elves were sent there... by Judit... to care for his house? Why would you do that? This dude is here for life, he doesn't get vacations, and his daughter is already with him, so what's the point?

Of course the real issue here is that they don't know how to get Lotte back! So while she's comfortable over there, they have no way to get to her, which is an issue. But hey, maybe some guy we've never heard of can help!

My thoughts exactly, Judit.

Turns out this is some dude who is like, 300 years old or something? Which begs the question: WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU SEEK THIS F***ER OUT FROM THE START?! WOULD'VE MADE THAT GETTING TO MIDGARD THING A LOT EASIER YA THINK?

Damn it Asuha STOP BEING SO CUTE!

So Asuha spends the next minute jumping around like an idiot while Judit makes arrangements to see the sage, and Lotte gets bored with the state of TV on Earth. Meanwhile, we learn that, thankfully, Asuha is wearing panties today because GUESS WHAT YOU GET TO STARE AT? YEP, DEM TEN YEAR OLD PANTSU THAT'S WHAT. HOPE YOU LIKE LITTLE GIRLS.

Cue the flashback with Judit who says she never got to meet him in the first place because she couldn't answer his riddle or something. Back to the dragon ride!

Meanwhile, back in Tokyo, Lotte discovers what a bidet is. Was it really necessary for us to see her sitting on the toilet? The answer is: of course it was why am I even asking this question in the first place.

I'll admit. I laughed.

Back to the other world, where Naoya is listening to a stupid-looking rabbit thing give a riddle. Something about losing something so you can freely fly through the sky. Oh god no. NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO I KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS AND THE ANSWER IS NOPE.JPG.

YOU SON OF A BITCH DON'T YOU EVEN.

So while Naoya sits there, contemplating baby birds and cicadas looking for the answer, I can pretty much predict Asuha is going to be the one to come up with the answer, and it's not one I'm going to like at all. They're supposed to put the answer in the postbox, but none of their answers so far are opening the door.

I'M WARNING YOU DON'T YOU F***ING DARE.

Then the wind blows and the camera pans down..... and Asuha gets it.

*quietly sobs*

My god.

I.

I can't believe this.

I actually cannot believe I'm about to say this.

The fact that they forced you to see that Asuha was wearing panties... was in fact to establish... that she could solve this riddle. And that you would completely understand it. In fact, everything has built up to this point.

It would almost be genius. Almost. Except for one tiny detail: SHE IS TEN F***ING YEARS OLD AND HOLY SHIT THIS DUDE IS JUST TOTALLY GOING TO ACCEPT LITTLE GIRL PANTIES.

So the doors open and they get let into the house, and they finally get to meet with the sage. Who is also... a little f***ing girl.

300 years old. Shorter than Asuha. Mind = blown.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Lotte is... oh god. I don't even want to know what she is riding.

That looks like a great big pile of NOPE to me.

So Ingrid (the sage girl) is all "yeah, succubi from the royal family are basically keys to the stupid tree". Which makes everything suddenly make more sense, in that it really doesn't actually explain anything whatsoever. Because one would think that's the kind of thing people would remember or something.

After all what good is the afterlife without some
hot bitches to bang?

So now they're left with two options: Either the princess opens the gate on her own, or they get the Queen to help. Or they can use the third option which is going to work just as well, and it involves Asuha because guess who is also a succubus? That dude's daughter.

Of course, there's another issue, being that since Alfheim (y'know, Earth) doesn't have any magic energy, Lotte is slowly going to run out of it since she can't recharge naturally. So she'll have to come back at some point, right? But hey, the sage is pretty sure there's nothing to worry about. She then marvels about how nobody's ever answered her riddle with panties before...

NOT REALLY THE POINT SINCE YOU ARE NOT
WEARING THEM ANYMORE.

Then Ingrid is all "nobody ever really called me by name and there's no point in going out since I pretty much know everything" and then goes upstairs, and I guess everyone follows. She just kind of looks out over the world and feels the cool breeze flow over, and Naoya asks for her to help bring the Princess back. Because he needs to talk to her and fix this since it's kind of his fault. Even Asuha gets in on this, who's taken to calling the great sage "Ini-chan" because Ingrid is too long of a name to remember.

Oh, and then she straight up just kisses the sage out of nowhere. No big deal.

Dude. She gave you her panties. Now she's kissing you.
I think she is coming onto you.

So since they're just so friggin' weird she agrees to help them, and off they go.

Meanwhile, someone has found Naoya's old photo album, and is looking back through all of the old pictures, then finding out that they just suddenly ended. So she gets bored and falls asleep.

Back at the tree, Ingrid is already showing Judit up with better spy tech, because that's kind of how she rolls.

Now you can spy on the princess in full HD quality.

They've noticed that she's running out of energy though, so they should probably do something because she doesn't have enough energy left to open the gate on her own. Whatever will they do?

TO BE CONTINUED. Or so the show says.

So remember kids: Acting like a complete slut gets you places.

Especially when you're ten.