I don’t like this character.
Impressions:
I’m fine continuing in this vein, but at episode 9, it feels long overdue, and there are still a ton of blemishes. I don’t much like the way they’re doing the Joker-esque character, especially the music every time she’s the focus. It’s just far too goofy and not at all menacing in any way. It’s very reminiscent of Lila’s schtick in Yozakura Quartet, but she played with knives and was actually threatening instead of being a relentless bunch of gags set to carousel music. There’s also the core conceits here, that there’s no better and safer place to live than… a Russian orphanage.
But it was a more action-oriented episode, and the director is doing their best with the relatively little animation budget they have. It’s definitely a step up from babysitting children in malls, even if the pacing is still kind of crap, most prominently as Shy herself just sat there being ineffectually hugged for I think around eight minutes straight. Apparently enough to resist fire blasts, but not enough to stop her from moving around and yelling plaintively in between each flashback, which I’m pretty sure was half recycled anyway.
