Shirou calls Kuroh “his loving wife”. This is an actual reality that verily happens within the confines of the truth.

Summary: Shirou, Kuroh and Neko dress up in garments from Ye Olde Times for no reason and go around campus looking for evidence to prove Shirou’s innocence. I’m not even going to bother with the alliterations, because that is honestly all that happens.

Aquagaze’s Thoughts: Well, at least I am happy about one thing. I can finally abandon any doubts I have about what K is trying to do or be. The answer is ‘not very much’. I can now say with confidence that K is a really stupid show, safely seated among its many peers in the “not very good” category, but in a way, that makes me happy. At least it gives me the opportunity to watch it without feeling my brain leaking out of my ears. Anyway, remember how the last episode was dedicated entirely to massive infodumps about this whole “King” business and shooting itself in the foot by removing any and all reasons for the Kings to fight? Yeah, this episode is the inevitable conclusion of that.

K has massive pacing issues. For a 13-episode anime, it really should be going a bit faster with its one remaining plot thread, but the real problem is that it does not know what it wants to do with the time it has been given. It is trying to tell a story of 7 Kings battling, but removes this element by making only 3 of the Kings remotely relevant. It wants to be a show with an humongous cast of weirdoes who all have their intertwined storylines, but ends up with neither. It loves to be seen as a badass action anime and will gladly shortcut its way through exposition for that, but on the other side, it wastes all of its time on developing the murder subplot extremely slowly and restating facts everyone is supposed to know already. How many more times are we going to get to see that bloody video?

“Have no fear, mystery lady with magical godmodding powers! I, the not-so-mighty and completely powerless Shirou shall protect you!” Now where have I heard that before?

All of this would not be that big of a problem if Shirou, Kuroh and Neko were even remotely interesting characters, but they really are not. Their interactions come off as some sort of unholy love triangle rather than anything else, and while Neko can be amusing at times, I still do not see why she gets as much attention as she does while there are ten characters waiting in line for some screentime. It’s not like girls actually matter in this show, right? Shirou and Kuroh’s husband-and-wife antics (with Kuroh being the wife, oddly enough) will surely get many a fujoshi‘s heart boiling, but they truly hurt Kuroh’s character in the process. Not a single strand of hair on my head thinks of this guy as a threat to Shirou – or anyone else for that matter – anymore, which does away with the tension the writers owe their audience for so extensively focuing on their weird friendship.

Oh, and of course Kukuri is jealous of Neko because she hogs all of Shirou’s attention. Yaaaaaaaaaay.

Random observations:

• Kukuri blushes at the mention of Random Plot Exposition Guy Mishina, who apparently doesn’t want her to know about a “dirty picture” even though he is in love with her. That’s not suggestive at all!
• Neither is this, by the way.
• Kukuri is questioned about Shirou’s alibi and constantly overhears our two gay lovers talking about a “crime”, yet it never occurs to her to ask whether her best friend might be under suspicion of murder. Okay, then.
• What the hell is up with the robots picking up random pieces of underwear? My guess is they belong to Neko.

This is not a bad screencap, the scene was just animated with the finesse of a shotgun.

Gee’s Thoughts: I must say, it’s almost impressive how bad Wizard Gang Wars has gotten since the beautifully animated impression it made in its first episode. We’re treated to another massive info dump devoid of any actual development. Wizard Gang Wars is supposed to be a 13 episode show and at this rate, we’ve only see three relevant kings and almost no relevant plot advancement whatsoever. Now this isn’t necessarily the end of the world, but it doesn’t help that our “main trio” are quite possibly the most uninteresting protagonists of this entire season. Kuroh was a genuinely intimidating force once upon a time but with the fujoshi-baiting that’s been going on nonstop, all pretenses of that are long gone. Anyone who knows my taste in anime will know that I absolutely detest characters like Neko and she barely even makes for a decent fanservice character. Considering how I feel about wishy-washy uninteresting protagonists, I feel I don’t even need to elaborate on how I feel about Shirou. Suffice to say, it’s not positive.

In a show literally filled to the brim with a wide cast of potentially interesting characters ranging from kung-fu skateboard kids to fiery wizard gangsters to katana-wielding magic cops, it’s almost a disservice to focus so much on the weakest characters in the show. It’s as if the studio responsible was purposely trying to ruin its own work and focus on pandering to the lowest common denominator who would only watch this show to see pretty boys in homoerotic situations. Not that that’s a bad thing in and of itself, but when a show I affectionately dub Wizard Gang Wars focuses more on the guy love than the actual magical street fights, you know there’s a problem.

“Haha, plot? What? Never heard of it!”

I suppose it may be worth holding on to some hope though. The preview for the next episode shows my most anticipated fight based on the trailers for WGW that I’ve seen; that being the one between Yata (kung-fu skateboard kid who loses all his fights) and pretty boy asshole traitor (whom’s name I don’t care to learn). I know the bishounen asshole will win because this show is made for a primarily female audience who always prefer the prettier face, but the animation I saw from the trailer was some of the most spontaneous and energetic I’d seen in a while so even if Yata inevitably gets his shit rocked, it’ll be a gorgeous sight to see.