Hitsujikai’s master plan is skillfully put into operation, successfully abducting Ryouko while managing to keep busy or just capture the rest of the Otogi Bank members, except for Ryoushi who, however, is training with (read: being beaten by) a very suspicious character.

I really hate Hitsujikai, he’s probably one of the most loathsome characters I’ve encountered in anime, especially given that I mostly watch moe / slice-of-life anime. However, I must say I love this kind of plans, taking into account every single detail. Let’s face it, that was really clever. Using rumors and unfavorable criticism to make Otogi Bank attract more customers to throw them off their guard, having too many tasks for them to be able to remain together. Meanwhile, they use Ryouko’s traumatic past to infiltrate a girl pretending to be a victim of Hitsujikai (although she probably is at any rate), while assaulting Otsuu who was keeping watch over Ryouko, making Ringo believe that her sister and her siblings were in danger, while keeping Urashima Tarou busy having kidnapped Otohime and almost capturing Alice having deceived Usami Mimi. A son of a bitch, but one hell of a good plan.

As for Ryoushi, he’s been ensnared by this very suspicious Nekomiya (Puss in Boots) I wonder if he’s in league with Hitsujikai, acting on his own, or even in cahoots with Hitsujikai while seeking his own profit, whatever it is (maybe Ryouko?)

Now, sure enough I’m still not liking very much the turn the plot has taken in the second half of the series. As you know, I’m always willing to ignore realism and reality and enjoy a show as escapism, but it’s become too grim. I mean, we can get bad guys such as in Index , and we can get almost realistically evil people like in Ookami-san. I mean, they are too evil, almost too real. And once I can’t just enjoy the escapism a show provides, I have to actually resort to doing something that, as you know, I really dislike: speaking about logic and consistency. I mean, I’m no lawyer and yet I can cite several felonies those guys have commited, such as abduction or battery. I mean, aren’t there cops there? Even in Index, with its fantasy setting, we have Judgement (and Kuroko awesomeness)

In the end, my problem is that I don’t know how to deal with this show. For a romantic comedy, things are way too serious. As I explained, how can I enjoy Ryouko’s tsundereness (and today we had some really cute Ookami-san blushing) when I know that this is not the result of, I don’t know, being a noble ojousama who is just too proud to accept her feelings (e.g. Louise), but rather the result of a very traumatic past that nearly destroyed her life? I think this is the problem with Ookami-san. It’s not unusual for a romantic comedy to add some drama (what I’ve started to call “obligatory drama”), as drama is often thought to give “depth” to the show (while comedy is shallow, you know, that kind of sophistry). The problem about Ookami-san is that the drama is too heavy—fucking cowards assaulting girls, implied rape, traumatic past, even a psychological explanation to Ryouko’s tsundereness, etc. While I enjoyed Ringo’s story because it was more moderate and didn’t have such a dramatic impact on the present, Hitsujikai is a villain more fitting to another show, not to a romantic comedy. I jokingly said at first that Onigashima looked like Cromartie High School, thinking Ookami-san was more comedy oriented. But now I really wish it was Cromartie High — precisely for its idealization of delinquents.

Yeah! Ryouko bondage! In another context it would be hotter!