Recap: Ryuko meets Mako’s family, learns a little more about Senketsu, and takes on Omiko Hakodate, head of the Tennis Club.

Gee’s thoughts: The good news is that KLK does an excellent job of keeping the energy up and the excitement going. Some great comedic moments combined with a little plot development and an awesomely ridiculous fight make for a perfectly paced episode. The bad news is that the cracks in Trigger’s budget are already starting to show. We were all worried after the first episode’s noticeable budget issues, but good god, will somebody give Trigger some money? KLK might have some of the best animators in the industry working on it, but that doesn’t mean much if you’re working with pocket change. This episode was more Inferno Cop than Little Witch Academia to say the least.

That said, it’s still the most entertaining show I’m watching this season and no matter what, I know it’s going to be one hell of a ride. The bits with Mako’s family and Ryuko’s teacher’s gender-equal fanservice moment were hilarious in their sheer audacity. In addition, the necessity of feeding Senketsu with blood as well as the strange rules the school places on her to hinder her ability to beat her enemies make for some great, if somewhat odd obstacles for her to overcome. And while it’s becoming a bit of a recurring joke, I can’t help but laugh everytime Ryuko runs away from battle when she knows she can’t win. It’s like she’s a weak reoccurring villain in a shonen manga, but she just happens to be the protagonist.

Overall, KLK has no trouble keeping up the excitement and keeping me engaged. Here’s hoping this episode’s budget isn’t the standard for the rest of the series though.

Lifesong’s Thoughts: The cheap animation is starting to become a real disappointment for me. I did find the equal opportunity fanservice… amusing? Trigger has the right idea, don’t take it away, give more to everyone!

Also, wow that food was gross. You do what you have to do I guess?

Jel’s Thoughts: Seriously, someone give Trigger more money. I agree they are making the best out of their clearly slight budget, but I refuse to acknowledge it as a positive. The comedy bits work fine but I think it really hurts in the fight scenes. My standout example would be Ryuko cutting down the initial wave of tennis balls after her transformation. Rather than overcoming the lack of animation with style, it just looked… cheap. Nevertheless, I’m going to try and make this the last time I lament that one nagging detail and just accept that is the way things are. Because really Kill la Kill continues to be a blast to watch, and even if they never get much past the Club Captain of the Week format (which I’m almost certain they will) I will have no further complaints.

Zigg’s Thoughts: Everybody’s complaining about the animation of this episode, but I honestly didn’t see much wrong with it. Yes, there’s a whole bunch of static and ‘gimmick’ shots, but we’ve pretty much established that that’s the style of the show, and the direction and artwork is so dynamic and packed full of whizz-bang touches that I was never bored or turned off by what i saw on screen.

Plot-wise the real highlight for me was getting to see Mako’s home life, which somehow makes slum living utterly hilarious. The madcap energy and crazy family interaction strongly evoked the spirit of FLCL for me, and I thought it was very amusing to see KLK‘s energy transposed into a more familiar setting. The show pretty much becomes an out-and-out  Chuck Jones style screwball comedy in these bits and I enjoy that a lot.

Elsewhere there’s a fair old bit of exposition dumping in this episode, which causes it to be slower than the impossibly madcap debut, but Trigger pick their battles well, slicing up the plot parts with cool action sequences and keeping the silly level high enough that you’re always constantly chuckling at something. We get a bit more insight into exactly how Senketsu works, Satsuki gets some character development beyond ‘grim faced big bad’ and the entire tennis match sequence is a delight to behold. I was a little worried about how high they crank the fanservice dial this time round, but it’s so camp and obviously cheesy that it’s hard for me to be offended, and stripping teacher is the sort of admirably out-there sequence i can get behind. A good second salvo for the show.