What’s the show? Pastel Memories, Episode 2.
So how’s this episode? We’re in a very difficult situation here!
Oh and why’s that? Because this episode managed to impress and disappoint me a lot and in completely different areas than I would have expected! Talk about your roller coaster of emotions!
Uh-huh. So as I recall last week this show was about Akihabara being deprived of all the otaku and a group of cafe girls trying to track down copies of a manga for a customer. Yes, that more or less sums it up and the manga was a thinly veiled reference to popular manga/anime slice of life series ‘Is The Order A Rabbit?’.
Right, that thing. And then the show went all weird and unexpected in the last minute with the 3 main girls transporting into the manga world to fight off viruses who were threatening to consume the memories of the manga series in the real world. Again, yes more or less. And this episode takes place just after our three main girls have transported to the fictional world of ‘Is The Order A Rabbit?’ and I must say as fan of the aforementioned series seeing this world again–albeit with a lower budget–was a veritable nerdgasm for this otaku!
And is that all this episode is, shameless pandering to fans of this particular slice of life show? Ouch. No, it’s not just that, I mean sure your overall enjoyment of this episode will be boosted if you’re at all familiar with the aforementioned series as there’s a decent amount of jokes that work without any knowledge of ‘Is The Order A Rabbit?’ especially in later parts as the girls battle a giant robot-thing guided by a cackling villain in skimpy clothing.
I’m hearing a lot of “impress” but not much “disappoint” care to elaborate on the latter. Okay… folks, I hate to say it but man the art was kinda average in this episode. Not the background art, that’s perfectly fine and consistent but faces and designs were off-model quite a bit and it got me worried that this’d be this seasons’ ‘My Sister, My Writer’. Granted it’s not nearly as bad as that show was but there’s more than a couple of occasions throughout this episode where I was having a good “yikes!” at various faces both on extras and on our main and supporting cast (though it’s more noticeable in motion than in stills).
Yeah… the last thing we need is another ‘My Sister, My Writer’ on our hands… I’m on the lookout but fingers crossed things don’t come to that.
So I presume they defeat the baddies and all’s well that ends well? Yes. And after being thanked by the ‘Is The Order A Rabbit?’ girls for their service our protagonists return to the “real” world to find that the missing Volume 1 has been located thanks to online fans remembering the series. And people begin returning to the cafe to bask in the nostalgia of the manga including the little girl who’s comment in their guest book set this whole thing in motion last episode. And it’s a lovely, wholesome ending to the episode… and then the show plays its ED for the first time and I can’t wipe the smile from my dumb face.
Oh no… it’s not ‘that’ is it? Oh, please tell me what you mean by “that”, I couldn’t possibly understand what you’re referring to…
It’s fan service isn’t it and the ~lewd~ kind too?! One minute and thirty seconds of possibly the most unexpectedly sexualised images I’ve ever seen from an ED! Even freakin’ ‘Senran Kagura: Shinovi Master’ which had 20+ girls nude bathing in a hot springs wasn’t as overtly sexual as the ED for ‘Pastel Memories’ was! Imagine my surprise and delight to see the delightfully thicc girls dancing and gyrating in bikinis several sizes too small for them. I was in hog heaven I tells you! Also might I add, the most consistent the visuals looked all episode, so you know priorities and all that!
I… I don’t even know what to say at this point… I do! Why do all the best shows get the lowest budgets?! Given more time and money this show could be absolutely legendary–and I’m not just talking about the ED. There’s a great amount of potential in this promise and it more or less lived up to it, maybe the execution was a bit flimsy but they did the best they could with what they had! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch that ED on repeat for the next few days…
If you liked my post and want to support my content, please consider supporting my Patreon page, or donating by buying me a coffee on Ko-fi!
Anime QandA 
Thicc, a fellow
LikeLiked by 1 person
Agreed, the faces looked off many times throughout the episode.
It is what it is I guess, I sort of figured this anime wasn’t very high budget after episode 1.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The ED better show up in your next Top 10 List. I mean it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’d be hard for it to not show up, all things considered!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It felt like they were trying to run some clock on this episode, stretch it out to fill the whole time they had, and that kind of dragged down the whole episode. But that might also be me not really finding the eel thing very amusing or interesting. I actually thought the chemistry between characters was pretty good, especially being able to just focus on the three in the trip, rather than adding three more, and three more, and three more. I also thought the level of battle was a pretty good one, where they were competent, but not amazing fighters, and it was mostly about having a quippy argument with the other woman.
LikeLiked by 3 people
There were a variety of things I felt were off about the episode… But I knew there was one I couldn’t quite identify accurately… But “running out the clock” nails it.
LikeLiked by 2 people