Astarotte no Omocha Episode 11 - A Full Stop For Just The Two of Us

I hope you're all having a good holiday season. Unless you are reading this during some other season, in which case I hope you're having a good day. Also, I want to take a moment to thank you for dropping by for the express purpose of reading me lose my goddamn mind while trying to come to terms with the fact that I am basically forcing myself to watch the closest thing to animated child pornography they could afford to actually air on television.

All for the hope that a few random strangers might get a good laugh out of it.

Go ahead. Laugh. I think it might be the only thing I have left these days.

Because I am a terrible person, I had to sit and remind myself what happened last episode. Then promptly try to forget it all again because there was a damn good reason I forgot it all had happened. I'm totally going to blame high exposure to naked kiddie bits. It's a valid excuse if ever I heard one.

On the bright side, after this I only have one more episode left. Know what that means? It means this show is almost done. By Friday, I will have completed watching this show in its entirety, and you can probably look forward to some bonus content in the form of a Final Review sometime during the weekend. Assuming you're into that kind of thing, which I dunno, nobody's told me otherwise so I'll assume that if you hate it you just suck as a person in general so whatever.

Anyway. Today on Lotte's Panties, we get to see the big ol' tree glowing and making those heart throbby noises and I have to ask myself: Is the tree popping wood? Is that what's going on here because after the shit I've seen lately I really can't be too careful these days. There's also lots of little flower petals flying all over the place and then... we get our intro? Really? What, I'm supposed to take something away from that? Oh noes the tree is dying or whatever?

Give me a break.

... now that the episode has begun, allow me to take just a moment of your time. To discuss this title.

As with last episode, this one requires a little bit of explanation, because I'm guessing that most of you out there aren't literary majors. And those of you that are will probably find this shit to still be so goddamn obscure and idiotic that you'll thank me for pointing it out in the first place.

That said, I'm not going to ask if you know what a Full Stop is. I'll just tell you.

IT IS A GODDAMN PERIOD. Yep. You heard right. IT IS A PERIOD. THAT THING AT THE END OF SENTENCES. A THING WHICH IS ALREADY BEING RECYCLED.

Oh I'm sorry was coming up with twelve unique goddamn punctuation marks to be used as titles too f***ing challenging for your puny little minds?! Christ on a stick just look at your goddamn keyboard, you could've come up with something if you'd tried! The Curly Brace of Relief? The Bracket of Confusion? Why not The Underscore Of Futility? There are plenty of other terms out there.

And yet, you had to recycle a goddamn period. Lazy. F***ing. Hipsters.

That having been settled, we get to see Lotte waking up in bed, which isn't unusual. What is unusual is that for once she seems to actually be wearing more clothes than is typical for her in sleep wear. It doesn't stop us from seeing her ass straight up in our faces though. She walks out and sees World Tree leaves of a strange reddish color which she admits is weird, and realizes her back hurts for some reason. It's probably growing pains.

Effie shows up and sees Lotte scratching her back, revealing a leaf-shaped red welt on it. Well gee that's strange and certainly not indicative of any potential problem. Judit has a look and starts freaking out, because it means... it means.... oh screw it.

Congrats. You are now one step closer to being Slutty Princess.

This is of course told to the entire household staff that their little girl is becoming a woman. Which I guess in this world means growing wings and drinking semen.

For once, Asuha and Naoya are the only ones in the room
that are understandably horrified by this sudden development.

Yes, this means that Lotte will start growing wings soon, and Judit informs Naoya that it is time for him to start doing his true job.

She is right on top of this, and Judit immediately begins preparations for this momentous occasion. Effie is to set the bed. Zelda is to post guards around the manor. Everyone else does important things that aren't interrupting Naoya taking advantage of a little girl that is his daughter's half-sister and also only twelve.

Oh and Olaf gets to make a Haiku. Then Lotte is all like "the hell is going on" and then Judi is all like "seriously what the hell guys are you really dumb?" and then she gets happy thinking about how this whole thing is going to work and she runs off with Asuha in the worst way imaginable.

That's it. This show is f***ing with me now.

Now it's just Naoya and Asuha, and they stare at one another awkwardly before he decides to ask what she wants for breakfast. No problem, she'll just take a bath and he can go away. Cool. But then she feels bad sending him away and is all staring at herself wondering what is up and we get to see all the leaves falling like they are something meaningful.

Then Naoya is all having flashbacks and shit, questioning his purpose here and all, and fels some weird sort of chill that flows through his body. Over in Judit's office, she tells the Queen via crystal ball what is up, and that Lotte is totes becoming a woman now and the Queen is all happy and shit and like "hey, you know if you put the marks on her back together they form a heart?"

Uh, wait that's not what the mark on her back looks like at all.

I understand that I am a complete and total idiot and
jumping the gun on this one because that is something else.

Far be it from Judit to admit to the Queen that she's wrong at this point. After all, it's not like she could possibly screw this up, right? I mean she's Judit after all. She knows everything. So she ends the skype call and is staring at that book going "oh shit how am I going to un-f**k this pooch?"

Then one of the World Tree leaves floats in and she notices the red color and goes "what?"

Seems like Asuha is starting to feel weird too, complaining about some weird beating of her heart, and one of the leaves just casually brushes past and erases the latest entry in the little girl's journal because the tree is a dick. And hopefully not sporting what is literally the world's biggest woody in existence. Because that would be a horrible pun to make.

Next we get treated to another wonderful BATH SCENE with Lotte and Effie where her servant is all trying to decide what kind of shampoo to use and boy don't you think Naoya would like some milk-scented shampoo because man that shit smells nice. Lotte's tail starts glowing like crazy, and she's like "huh, wonder what's up with that?" while the sage looks at the tree with her magic telescope going "boy this isn't good at all, wonder if I should tell folks?"

She then proceeds to tell folks. The tree is exhibiting a tremendous amount of magical energy for some reason. It's at this point Judit realizes she's never seen the leaves of the World Tree change before, and that good ol' sage goes on to say that the balance of the worlds is probably pretty much f***ed at this point, and that the bridge connecting them is preparing to collapse. No biggie.

We then get a brief history lesson. When the gate was closed, everything was fine and balanced. But since folks have been, you know, traveling through it lately, it's thrown the balance all out of whack, and now the tree is trying to get rid of things that aren't of this world.

You know. Humans.

Oh, like the bit where you're trying to hook a little girl up
with what might as well be her step-father?

Judit decides to take this time to come forward and mention that mark on Lotte's back isn't a mark of maturity. It's probably the tree influencing her in some weird way, and if left unchecked it could be bad. Which causes Naoya to freak out and ask the sage what do. At which point Lotte asks why Naoya is staring at the tiny little smart person without saying anything.

Much to the surprise of the entire room - who realize that he's kind of freaking out at the sage. Not staring.

It's at this point everyone realizes that it's getting harder to hear Naoya, and also Asuha, who are slowly losing their color as well. Could this be the rescue ending I was hoping for? Not likely, we're only halfway through this episode and there's still one more after this.

Turns out those two can't hear anyone else in the room either, and Ini is like "well damn, this can't be good". Commercial break while Lotte starts crying!

Upon return from the break, we get something really, really stupid.

That just doesn't even... augh.

Effie tries to force the two to drink some disgusting-smelling green goop, but turns out that it's a thing you rub on the throat, not something you drink, thankfully. Of course the great sage is all like "you guys are dumb". Next, Olaf gives Naoya a 'throat massage' which is less a massage and more outright assault. Then Lotte starts crying again and tells Olaf to stop and some leaves blow and the scene fades.

Now Asuha and Naoya are in their room quietly talking, and the maid comes to tell them lunch is ready, but they can't hear her so they just smell food has been prepared and proceed to have the most awkward lunch ever, where they talk but never hear one another. How sad. It's so sad, they have sad piano music. Asuha tries to show Lotte the diary she wrote, before discovering it is blank. Or mostly blank as some of the pages are still erasing. Then Lotte storms of crying again, and we get more sad piano music and leaves falling and girls crying and slow pans all over the place because slow pans are trendy these days damnit all.

Oh and of course this is also the best place for us to start having more flashbacks to the earlier episodes in a lovely montage of idiocy.

Thankfully this takes up precious minutes of my time because it's all crap I've seen before and don't have to proceed giving any shits about  because frankly, it's just them being lazy and recycling shit because they are lazy. But at least this is a flashback done right, so I can't be so hard on them about this. After all, the point here is that she's really gonna miss that doof.

Speaking of, Judit apologizes for what's going on and he's all "yeah whatever, let's just go home, we're done here". A normal reaction, but I'm hoping he's just glad to finally get out of little girl boning duty, because I sure as hell would have quit by now. He wants to get gone... so that nothing happens to the princess.

How touching.

They leave, more leaves fall, and Lotte is all standing outside looking sad and says they need to send them off properly, and is like "hey, we can't just forget them, we need to make new memories right away so we don't forget them" and even Judit gets a little weepy.

Naoya and Asuha get all ready to go and everyone is happy and dressed nice and there's a party with food on the table. Then all Lotte's classmates show up and are like 'wow that red tree sure looks ominous' and they are now sad to have to say goodbye.

Hugs are had and Asuha continues to be cute as shit. Seriously.

ENOUGH WITH BEING ADORABLE OH GOD. WHY
ARE YOU TRYING TO INTENTIONALLY MAKE THIS SHOW
SOMEWHAT TOLERABLE DESPITE ITS RECURRING THEME?

Everyone is happy, except for Lotte who is kind of embarrassed and then daddy says its time to go home. He says some things they can't hear and everyone claps and Asuha gives Lotte a gift. She explains they're stuff her dad and her were using while they were here, and upon opening it, Asuha can't help but notice something missing.

What the hell are- don't. Just don't. Do not.

Lotte is all "the stuff might vanish but I will somehow always remember you" and she gives Asuha a hand-made ugly reindeer charm and shows off her bandaged fingers which then sends Asuha into a teary-eyed reaction, and you all know this is just going to end with everyone crying. Including me.

Except I'll be crying tears of goddamn joy because this is the end of a very long road for me.

She accepts the gift and, predictably, starts crying.

Ah, delicious sweet tears.

Naoya looks at his daughter as she thanks Lotte and cries, and Olaf starts crying about how they're like sisters, and Naoya is like "eh she'll probably be fine without us, she'll go back to normal and grow up and love normal people". Then they shakes hands and she talks about how she couldn't make a reindeer and she wants him to remember her and she asks him to go on a date with her.

Not like he can hear her of course.

The end!

Or not. Because there's still another episode.

But you know what's even worse?

I just found out THERE IS ALSO A BONUS EPISODE.

... this show can go straight back to hell. Here I was thinking I was right at the end and then BAM. SORRY BUT THERE'S AN EXTRA EPISODE AND IT IS GOING TO TAUNT THE HELL OUT OF YOU ISN'T IT.

Of course it is. Maybe I'll save it for a rainy day. I dunno. We'll see.