Brave10 - 6 (Eternal Quest to Find My Sister)

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This episode just completely bind-sided me. I didn't realise that Brave10 was going to use up one of it's precious 12 episodes to do a gag episode.

Seeing as this episode came out of nowhere, the best way for me to describe it is to use the word bitter-sweet. This comes from enjoying the mass amounts of humour that went on in the story and ignoring the complete lack of action in this episode but then being disappointed that the biggest advancement in the storyline comes from the addition of another brave; namely Isanami's "brother" Seikai, a huge monk who has travelled the world learning about Buddhism and Shintoism only to conclude that they are the same thing.

The initial meeting between the group and Sekai was just as humour-intended as the rest of the episode itself. Unfortunately it wasn't even initially funny, just enough to make you chuckle once or twice but ultimately it became a little boring to carry on watching. I know why that the humour in the episode would probably be better received by the Japanese than us westerners but I'd be more shocked if they all found it to be original and extremely entertaining; any otaku will feel compelled to point out how the humour is so generic and proceed to name a list of countless anime that have used the same humour.

You know what, I'm going to do it right now in list form:

1. Yuri's gender to be revealed in the hot spring - Baka to Test, Boku wa Tomadachi etc.

2. Isanami comparing her breasts to Ana's - Any shonen work regardless of genre (trust me).

3. Yuri's confused feelings for Saizo - A lot of different works

And there are probably many more, but because I can't remember everything I'm going to take a pass at naming the rest.

Minus the anime's attempt to, what I assume, to have a breather episode I'm still left at a loss for words when thinking about how the rest of the story is going to progress. Six episodes into this 12 episode season and we have so far met 8/10 braves, the setting seems a little weak to justify a glorious final bloodbath war and most worrying of all is that the main antagonist has appeared fully for only one episode. Breaks my heart to say this but the next episode of Brave10 I watch might be the last. Some might have already given up on the series but because the next episode will introduce the final 2 braves then hopefully the remaining episodes can fill in the story at a fast pace and serve as the setting to a final battle.