''T'was the night before the night before Christmas, and at TV Tropes, Pirka was writing her new Liveblog post.
A stocking was hung on her closet with care, and a Perry plushie sat right inside there.
Pirka had gone to the movies earlier, and enjoyed an amazing Disney spectacular, "But now is the time," the girl Pirka did say, "To continue my blog of the Kämpfer anime!"''
Cheesy intro aside, let's dive headfirst into Kämpfer: episode three. I was warned by Jhiday that this episode would be chock full of Les Yay, so this review should be interesting to read...
The Cold Opening is another summary. Moving on. I had a bit of Fridge Logic hit me while I was watching the opening song this time - how come we've never seen Akane's Transformation Sequence to become a Kämpfer?
The episode begins with Female!Natsuru walking on the girls' side of the academy. No, wait, it features boobs walking on the other side of the academy. I haven't seen this much boob action since Yoko! It turns out Akane is in his new class too, which is good, because if she wasn't we'd be pretty much screwed on the exposition front. Just as Nats is about to protest this...RAGING FANGIRLS! Hundreds and hundreds of schoolgirls surround her/him/whatever, cooing "She's so cool!". Note that this is within the first 3 minutes of the episode, and the first few seconds if you don't count the Cold Opening/Opening song/summary part. Then, the rabid masses begin to ask personal questions such as 'how tall are you?', 'What's your cup size?' and 'Why am I the only straight person in this classroom?' (guess which one I added for humorous effect!) Then, some random girl wants to smell her. This scene is 10 million times funnier when you remember that Natsuru is a boy and that he'd totally be popping a boner right now if he could. Then, another random girl asks if she wants to buy some kind of luck-bringing artifact, and I seriously had to go back and read that part again to see if I was missing any innuendo there.
This girlfest is interrupted by a shoe sale none other than Kaede, who tells the girls to eff off and grabs Natsuru by the hand, dragging her out of the classroom like a mother who just caught her son looking at Playboy at the drug store. Then, Kaede proceeds to give Pirka an Entrail Animal indulge in a little self-inflicted Marshmallow Hell while making eyes at Natsuru like the girl in that "How can you love her if you can't even eat her own poop?" screenshot. Before barfing or fapping ensues, however, Natsuru's bracelet begins to glow, so (s)he runs off to avoid a situation that really couldn't get any more awkward than it already was, leaving Kaede in the hall alone.
However, it turns out the bracelet was a false alarm (??) and Akane is waiting for Female!Natsuru on the roof of the school. She berates him for hanging out with that 'slut' Kaede, in case you didn't realize Akane loves Natsuru yet. Akane then tells Natsuru that, if his/her bracelet glows at school again, she should run to the library. Then she dangles Natsuru off a building for saying Kaede isn't a slut, which was pretty funny.
Cut to Natsuru back in class, surrounded by the squees of Schoolgirl Lesbians from all sides. During lunch time, she eats a grape in a rather suggestive manner, prompting a random girl to squeal "A grape! She's eating a grape!" Ladies and gentleman, I just found a new Unusual Euphemism to use! However, the hilarity of that is insta-killed by the next girl saying she wants Natsuru to "roll her tongue around [her] like that". O_____O I'm watching non-porn anime, right? Natsuru's reaction is pretty similar to mine - "What the hell?"
I apologize for all the quotations, but the attempted Fetish Fuel (more like Fetish Retardant) in this episode is just hilarious. The three class reps consult Natsuru about her popularity and the treasurer tries to sell her bottled water that makes you "Live until you die." I think it's a scam, Nats - I wouldn't buy it for that price unless it stopped me from dying when I was killed. Then a ludicrously cute Genki Girl - she's from the school's newspaper club - appears, spouting Gratuitous English and pulling Natsuru into an interview in a room full of otaku memorabilia. She then goes all [[{{24}}Jack Bauer]] and proceeds to ask Natsuru random questions while inexplicable Mexican-sounding music plays in the background.
Fast forward to the release of the school newspaper, which has the headline "The New Transfer Student Is A Lesbian?!". Gee...the irony of this kills me. In this school, a shocking headline would be more like "Some Girl Kissed A Boy!?".
More fangirls chasing, blah-dee-blah, and the Eyecatch is Not-Sakaki this time. Not much to talk about other than the way she says "Kämpfer" makes her sound like she's trying to fake a male voice or something.
The class reps get the brilliant idea of charging money for the fangirls to talk to Natsuru, which leads to a scene that I will admit made me laugh out loud. The montage of girls that talk to Natsuru includes a normal girl, a girl who apparently thinks she's an alien (or maybe she's supposed to be a Magical Girl?), a creepy ghost girl, a bondage-fetish girl and a girl who wants Natsuru to put on skimpy langeree (I know I spelled that wrong btw).
Natsuru runs the hell out of the classroom, for obvious reasons, when suddenly she's captured and tied up by three Bondage Girls (tm). I wish I was making this up. They fight over who gets to touch her first and we get gratuitous shots of boobs. Fast-forward to that night - THANK GOD! There's a possiblity of MASCOTS! - and Natsuru collapses on the bed, exhausted, and wondering when she'll turn back into a guy. Hara Kiri Tiger is there, and his mere prescence made Pirka cry tears of joy. Unfortunately, he is near-instantly shoved into a trash can for making a joke about Natsuru's virginity. Akane arrives at the door with Seppuku Black Bunny on her head, and she comes bearing cake (although my instant reaction, as a Canadian, was "Is that a Timbits box?"). Akane comes into the house for tea, but leaves in a huff when Natsuru mentions Sakura, blah blah blah love triangle.
At school the next day, the three council reps grab Natsuru and demand her to do all this erotic stuff, including "reading an adult novel out loud". Kaede jumps in, makes a dramatic speech about how she's the only one allowed to provide Les Yay fanservice, and "rescues" Natsuru from certain humiliation. The two sit in an admittedly cool-looking lunch room, eating lunch; Kaede feeds Natsuru what looks like mashed potatoes with random vegetable bits in an erotic manner, etc. Then, Not-Sakaki shows up and sits at the table, for the sole reason of being a bitch (though...I admit I was glad she shut the Les Yay tap off): she says that Natsuru is "dating someone from the boys side with the exact same name", prompting Kaede to storm off. Nice going, Not-Sakaki. Now everyone's gonna ship Natsuru x Natsuru.
All the fangirls start bitching about this revalation that Natsuru is straight, and, at the worst possible moment (when else?) Natsuru's bracelet starts to glow. She runs to the library and finally becomes a boy again. Note that Natsuru has been female for the entirety of this episode and that there haven't been any action scenes. FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU—
Akane turns out to be in the library, and she starts yelling at Male!Natsuru that he's an arrogant jerk because he's dating himself! Seriously, how often do you get a chance to say that!? Then Kaede shows up, sees them together, calls Nats a slut, etc. The episode ends as she declares "I won't let her date the likes of you!" and poses dramatically.
Er...I really have no idea what to say about this episode. It seemed like a rancid combination of Filler and Les Yay. It might have been more pleasurable if I were a boy watching this, but even that seems like a stretch. Combine this with almost no mascot scenes and no action whatsoever and you have an episode that makes me want to cut off of my head with a chainsaw. Anyone got Brain Bleach?
This is Pirka saying "A grape! She's eating a grape!"
