Welcome to another week of wacky animal creation! Without stalling and unnecessary introduction, I’ll dive into my review. Enjoy ~
Quick Summary
This week, my questions about whether there are other departments or not from last week are answered: Yes, seems like our design team is not the only group that is outsourced. We meet the Insect Department, then learn from Ueda that there are other departments we haven’t met yet, such as plant or rock divisions. Can’t wait to get to know them! We focus on Meido’s creations and style, who is the Cute Aficionado of the team. On this week’s agenda, we have parasites, koalas, lots of sea creatures, and you guessed right, more bishounen horses. But this time, dumb-ified for the sake of beauty!
Favorite Aspects and Moments
First of all, the men in the Insect Dept. were so cute! Do they look all the same and are large in numbers because of the department they are in? Or was that another jab at the eternal glasses-and-flannel-shirt combination of engineering and natural sciences research lab attire? Either way, I hope to see more of them and their perv- *coughs* admirable dedication to making prototypes smaller throughout the season!
The star of this episode is Meido-chan, rocking her teal, punk lolita style dress and accessories. She is acknowledged by other members as having a knack for cute designs and while everyone is fawning over her creations, I kept finding myself fawning over her. I was wondering if she was going to be a bit colder or reserved compared to other female characters but that bashful blush when she was complimented on her frog, told me what I needed to know. Her voice actor, Naomi Oozora is doing a perfect job of portraying her as well!
The next task our design team is entrusted with is creating an animal that is “cute but not cute”. Kanamori is rightfully angry at the vagueness of the description, I reminisced the times a close friend who’s an art director, was freelancing for some time. Every night, she’d complain about how “the client had no idea what they wanted but it just wasn’t what she designed”. My heart goes out to all the people who do such creative work.
Thankfully, Meido doesn’t shy away from the task and has people with whom she can exchange ideas. As a result, she designs such an animal that its males have two penises, adults feed on poisonous plants, and the offspring feed on their poop, they fight with their loud screech because they are slow, and since Meido maxed the cuteness levels with these properties (I know, right?) the appearance turns out to be ‘not cute’. Here I was, waiting for some bizarre animal to show up like the flesh-eating sponge tree in the previous episode. I couldn’t have guessed this was supposed to be a koala to save my life. The more you know.
When we’re back to the design room, we’re also back to the ‘horse discourse’. No matter how Higuchi tries to reason with him, Tsuchiya just wants that unicorn to roam the earth. His persistence must have rubbed on Mizushima as well, so he joins in adjusting the horn, or Higuchi offers to add that detail to a cow or play around with the shape of the horse’s body but Tsuchiya’s first and foremost concern is beauty. That’s when he proposes to dumb his creation down, and… they actually give it a try, which yields hilarious results.
The second half is our design team going on a vacation on the Galapagos Island, but much like any other corporate vacation, it’s 30% relaxation and 70% work. God seems to be in a good mood as well, so plenty of sea creatures get accepted. Not missing the chance, our Chief Tsuchiya tries to sneak in his beloved horses but to no avail. Now, that’s some shounen anime protagonist level of dedication.
Since some of the creations have the predator-prey type of relationship in their natural habitat, this also bears a certain rivalry between members. In this episode, we see Meido and Unabara having a show-off and adding updates to their creations; the giant squid and dolphin. Unabara is the winner, thanks to his genius echosound addition to his dolphin and this friendly competition comes to an end. God doesn’t forget Tsuchiya as well, he at least gets approval on his sea horse.
Yet another episode, full of entertaining antics and fun animal kingdom related bits. The opening song ‘Give it up?’ is growing on me as well. Which animal was your favorite creation this week? Which color of the bishie unicorn was prettier? Which of the Insect Dept. boys is your bias? Hope you have a nice week ahead, and see you next time!
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