Maken-Ki! Episode 09 - Tempestuous Water Riding Battle

Part of me wishes that perhaps I had saved that other show for the end of the week instead of this. But you know, I'm starting to think that this is for the best. It's like ripping off a bandage - sure, it's gonna hurt like hell, but anything that comes after really doesn't matter as much.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm minimizing the damage done to my psyche by maximizing the amount of damage done to my psyche in one go.

... either that made sense or I truly have gone crazy.

Blah blah roll the boring intro. I guess it's not so bad. It's just not great. The song is nice, but the whole thing is like "GIRLS WITH BUTTS AND BOOBS" and that bothers me, like, a lot. But now I have to remember that all of the people shown in this are basically relegated to secondary characters now that the new crew of gals showed up and couldn't be bothered to be included in the damned opening sequence.

Anyways, we start this shit with Syria (now re-named Cilia I guess but I'm sticking with the other name because IT AMUSES ME SO) appearing in the flashback (which doesn't invoke any pantsu counters.... YET) as grape hottie is busy recounting everything that we 'learned' last episode. Blah blah date blah crappy doll thing and then she gave him a solo concert the end start the episode for real now.

So some guys are like "FINALLY OUR TIME HAS COME AND THIS IS OUR LAST CHANCE" or some shit and probably involves looking at butts.

They are almost definitely talking about looking at butts.

They remind one another of why they really came to this school even though they're supposed to hate each other and despite the fact that one of them has clearly developed a f***ing harem now. But whatever.

Yeah, to hell with learning how to use MAGICAL F***ING POWERS,
you just wanna look at butts all day. The Internet exists you know!

So they're going to climb that ladder, probably together, look at some butts, and nearly kill themselves.

But not before a timeskip to three days ago.

I'd say this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, but considering
I just finished watching Shimoneta I'll settle for second stupidest.

I have many questions. Such as: How was this meeting set up? Why didn't the staff do anything about it? Does nobody really care what these boys do? And why is this really such a big deal for the guys considering that girls aren't some magical object you're supposed to acquire?

Anyways the boys take some giant stack of signatures to the Kenkeibu and they're like "the f**k is this shit?" and duder there is like "THIS IS JUSTICE OR SOME SHIT!" and the president is all "okay no seriously what the hell are you on about this time?"

Definitely the second stupidest thing.

The girls immediately call them on their shit because all they wanna do is perv right out. Which, again, one of them literally has his own harem. The other could just easily use the Internet instead of, y'know, being criminally perverted, but whatever. We get our first pantsu at three and a half minutes, which is rather reserved for this show, but since it's all about swimsuits I'm sure that will attempt to change soon enough.

Also the one with the bandage on her nose for no reason is sewing which is 'unexpectedly girly'.

Bitch, anyone can sew, doesn't have to be a girly thing thanks. It is a very practical skill.

May you take a long walk off a short pier with some concrete shoes.

MAYBE IF YOU WEREN'T SO BUSY TRYING TO HAMMER
IN THOSE DIFFERENCES SO HARD IT WOULDN'T BE
AN ISSUE YOU GODDAMN PERV.

They make the case that lessons should take place at the same time and the girls are like "yeah but like boys signatures are boys signatures and the girls don't give a shit so it's not enough ha ha ha you lose."

Uhh. There is something wrong with your pitch here bro.

In true high school anime tradition they've got to do the stupid water polo with people thing. That thing where girls tend to lose their tops. But then the others are like "bro, we have f***ing Makens for this shit and battle it out like MEN and shit but we're WOMEN so basically you're a dork but we're going to wind up doing it anyway because of some contrived bullshit where someone important thinks it's 'interesting' so let me give you this long and winding lesson on where this shit maybe originated from to bore you to death and pad some more time".

Also more panties.

Grape Ape comes in and tries to be angry and stuff, and to be fair, she has a point: THEY ALREADY DECIDED THIS SHIT SO F***ING DEAL WITH IT. But nope, the writers wanted a contrived reason to bring this shit up and so that's exactly what they're doing.

It isn't hard to goad purple into the game though, and now we get the requisite changing room scene where the pantsu is more outrageous than the plot.

Also nipples but sadly we aren't counting those.

They lean more heavily on the ogling thing while people talk but most of the time you can't see their faces anyways because boobs nipples butts crotches! All of the most important things in this show. I am beginning to think the pantsu counter becomes more irrelevant with each passing episode because they just keep opting for full-frontal nudity, and once you go nude it's hard to dial that shit back.

Outside, of course, team dorkwads find that the ladder is too short. Oops. What a shame. Let me play for you the smallest of violins.

Anyways some dude down below is like "dudes are we doing this polo thing or what also why are you on a ladder?"

Then some big ape-looking mother f***er shows up and is like "YO. I. AM HERE. AND STUFF." And he picks up the ladder and shakes them off.

CLEARLY THIS IS THE IMPORTANT THING THIS EPISODE
AND THEREFORE EVERYTHING I SAY WILL BE IN CAPS.

But they mention bandage girl is up there too and suddenly he changes his tune to "I AM SUDDENLY AROUSED AND WILL HELP YOU IN YOUR QUEST".

That's cool and all, and it reminds me that someone else never
got HIS Maken, but I'm sure nobody cares about that.

Tiny dude there is like "I can make the body vanish but not their presence" whatever that's supposed to mean. Which means they immediately give up because everyone will know because POWER LEVELS ARE BULLSHIT.

Don't worry though. That one terrible shitstain of a human being won't settle for mere normal levels of depravity. Nope, he's gonna sink even lower.

Seriously bro, you have some f***ing issues.

Now it is time for the thing and people cheer and the competition is on.

Also for some reason one of the teachers is competing. You know. For the boys. Because that's fair.

The twins are all like "oh my god this is so dumb why are
any of us even here?"

Look at all the girls wearing swimsuits even though only a handful are actually competing.

... seriously why are everyone wearing their swimsuits when all that's happening is watching a competition? Only six boys and six girls are even going in the water so what sense does any of this make?

CONCLUSION: IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE EXCEPT THE ARTISTS JUST WANTED TO DRAW GIRLS IN SWIMSUITS THE END.

Please drown thanks.

The boys all take turns saying things and then it's the girls' turn.

WHY ARE YOU EVEN IN THE POOL THEN.

The better question is why are you even participating?
OH RIGHT BECAUSE THEY RAN OUT OF CAST.

There's some petty cat fighting, some appeasements made, and suddenly the girls aren't being quite so catty with one another even though their entire characters can be summed up as "straight bitches".

Finally after what feels like FOREVER they're like "we should probably do this thing then" but FIRST they have to do a 'battle ritual'. It's basically a bunch of people shouting things as static images pan around because the artists were too lazy to actually draw anything. Probably had something to do with them drawing hundreds of people this episode.

But don't look now, because there's a commercial break getting in the way of anything actually happening. Haha made you wait.

More pantsu on the return slide and we're finally.... NOT into the actual competition. Because they're starting with a 'strategy meeting'.

Sure hope you weren't expecting any action!

Their planning quickly falls apart upon first contact with the enemy, of course, because people actually decide they want to compete and not just be man-handled (ha ha clever joke) by the opposing team.

Also, hands are soft.

Uh-huh.

But then he whispers some 'secret words' into cat girl's ear and she's like "I AM SUDDENLY FLUSTERED" and he nabs the headband putting her out of the game immediately.

Someone wake me when this shit gets interesting seriously.

The competition continues though with magical bullshit going on. Also they take the time to imagine the blonde Tsun chick naked which makes her feel kind of disgusted and mad that they take the time to say that her small tits are the best.

Objectification at its best!

Of course her spirit thingies take the time to take the insults to their logical extremes which causes her to lose her cool and decide to just electrocute everyone, rules be damned.

Is this really going to be the rest of the episode? They have only a handful of episodes left and they're just... abandoning the plot? Not that there was much of one to begin with, but when you set shit up and then decide never to address it, this really shows you where the priorities lay with the team creating the show. And people wonder why folks can't take anime seriously?

Also that super perv just sneaks up behind and steals blondie's headband anyways so whatever not like anybody actually gives a f**k. I sure don't.

Seriously, shit is so boring even the twins are asking if this episode is over yet.

Now it is time for Grape and Hero to face off with their usual spirited childhood rival bullshit. But he decides to go for the tit grab because, why not? And attempt to rip off the headband while copping a feel.

You make it sound like a good thing.

This enrages Grape but she loses the headband and dude somehow manages to survive the landing. Then they make with a slow-mo replay because reasons.

Now it's time for the big guy to beat up on that one girl. But she does a flying kick to the gut and knocks him over and Syria grabs the headband. So much excitement.

Y'know what? I'm gonna stop with the play-by-play at this point. Because this is so f***ing boring. You deserve better. I deserve better. We all deserve better than this show. Headbands get taken, people fly around, and some other people fall into the water.

Also this guy does something but nobody cared.

Also this show becomes so bored with its own nonsensical bullshit that it elects to just do some of the 'fights' off-screen because that's how disinterested it is with its own goddamned premise.

Oh noes time for the teachers to do things. Oh no, I don't actually care. Oh no, more crotches in our face for no reason. Oh no the perverts are taken out in one strike. Whatever.

Zzzzzzz....

I guess the guys survive Syria's bullshit but whatever. Teachers make with the mid-air fighting and shit and get into an air battle that is literally less interesting than whatever boys-love manga art girl is reading.

Everyone is watching the amazing fight take place above the
pool and we're just watching a girl reading manga.

We don't even get any real proper fight footage either, just static poses in mid air and then people falling and then someone grabbing a thing. Oh no now it's just Syria and those two pervs, whatever will happen now.

Hopefully this show ends at some point since there's only a couple of minutes left but they guys are like "FINAL PLAN TIME" and Syria is all "HOOOOOT" and I'm like "f**k this show".

Oh no, the idol is now exposed because her top was taken off but oh no what do you know she was wearing a swim suit under her swim suit.

This whole show is nothing BUT fanservice.

Let's take some time to ogle those impossibly bouncing jubblies that bob around even though there is no reason for them to do so because that's what everyone really wants to see. Why are you watching this show instead of just a million gifs of bouncing tatas? You'd get a lot more mileage out of it, that's for sure. It's not like it used to be, where you had to watch these shows to get this kind of fix - this is the age of the Internet, you can get tatas on demand now. For free, even!

Now it's Syria and main dude I guess but nobody cares and I just want them to end this episode already. But now the girls decide to use the water power thing to make a damn tidal wave and just win the game.

OH BUT SUDDENLY SOME OTHER GIRL STANDING OUTSIDE WITH A SOMEWHAT DISAPPROVING LOOK. OH THE NOES.

And we care... why? Oh right, we don't.

Then the waterfall stops, Syria leaps into dude's arms, they have a nice little hug and he steals a headband and everyone is happy except all the boys despite the fact they won whatever victory and stuff.

Also that girl standing outside and the water girl is like "that last chick is here so we should do the thing we came here to do."

Also random panty ogling.

Oh no, they are gonna kidnap someone. Who cares it's time for swimming class.

Again, dude, you live with three girls. Shut up.

But things don't turn out the way they expect for some reason.

This seems really inconvenient, but whatever.

Also some of the girls appear naked even though they're supposed to be wearing swimsuits. I don't get it. I also don't care. I don't want to hear girls talk about how they can't be seen and what a shame it is. I want this to end.

And so it does, finally.

Finaly tally for this episode is a measly 22. But it also doesn't take into account all the times people were naked, which is in itself at least another 22. But I wasn't counting those for some reason.

I think I need to rethink the pantsu counter for future shows, because this is getting ridiculous.