This episode has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a long time. It was also hilarious. I had low expectations for a trip to the pool, and we got about the level of fanservice I expected. But what I didn’t expect was the four way idol battle. It wasn’t quite as epic as Hingaiku’s Cruel Angel’s Thesis and Hayate’s maid dash, but we’re getting there.

Even Haruna joined in, complete with flamethrower and punk outfit. Then we got Eu too, singing a slower-paced song that was well-offset by Sera and Saraswati’s stupid dancing and Ayumu’s outfit. This is how a fanservice episode should be done: put in some fanservice, fine, but also make it funny (they could have done with less fanservice, but whatever). An episode of nothing but fanservice is merely cringe-worthy, not entertaining. When used occasionally in combination with everything else that makes a show enjoyable, I don’t mind some fanservice.

But the best part of the episode was at the very end, when the King of the Night made his return!

Ok, this was awesome! So often comedies will devolve into an attempt at being serious in the last episode for the finale and fail miserably. Kore wa Zombie Desu ka has taken the opposite approach and turned the ridiculousness up a notch, and it’s paid off handsomely! It didn’t make any sense, but who cares?

Where to begin… we have Haruna talking with her chainsaw, Ayumu’s body rebuilding effort and walking around the house naked, the return of the well dressed ghost whales in the sky (an entire fleet this time), Haruna and Ayumu’s double transformation for extra cuteness, the vampire ninja meido orchestra… I was cracking up the whole time. I wish more comedies would realize that it’s ok to just be funny and not try to tell some “point” or in general have an actual plot. But with that said, in spite of (or perhaps because of) all the ridiculousness, the story was actually pretty solid. Which in turn served to make the other zombie’s dying words even more hilarious….

It seems like next episode will be a trip to the hot spring. I think that this show should be able to put an interesting twist on the usual formula, so it should be good. And the plot seems to be done with so we don’t have to worry about the creators holding back. Maybe Yuu will call Ayumu “onii-chan”… I was waiting for her to say that in the tower and for the episode to end, but it didn’t happen. At least the preview didn’t disappoint in this regard.

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka has been losing it’s pace and humor the past few episodes, but in this episode it seemed like it’s headed back on track for a decent finale. For  the first time, there was a good balance of the comedy and plot – in the past they had half an episode of srs bsns followed by half an episode of whale hunting, but here it was actually interleaved so it became neither too heavy nor too ridiculous (if there even is such a thing). For example, Haruna and Yuki’s reversed gluing job after Ayumu was attacked, and Ayumu chasing Eu into the sky after she left.

Tomonori managed to become much less annoying in this episode, probably because her interactions were largely with Haruna and Sera instead of playing newlyweds with Ayumu. Haruna and Tomonori do make a great pair with their complete idiocy. There’s still been no explanation whatsoever about what was supposed to have happened to Tomonori last episode with her golem transformation. But if the creators want to pretend that never happened I’ll play along.

I’m wondering if Sera has become either a vampire ninja zombie or a vampire ninja necromancer now that Eu gave her blood. I’ve been waiting nine episodes now for Ayumu to become a magical girl zombie vampire ninja but at this point it just doesn’t seem like it was meant to be.

Why is it petting you, you ask? Why not?

Overall a stronger episode than the last few. The rolling ferris wheels and giant stuffed animals falling from the sky have my whole-hearted approval. The drama with both Eu and Sera’s decisions were well done too. But Yuuki’s transformation and Ayumu’s power of love was way too corny.

First of all, where exactly did that golem thing come from again…? There’s a difference between funny nonsensical randomness, like the yellow animal thing, and randomness because the creators just pulled something out of their rear ends. Second, the power of love winning like that is just way too corny and overused, so much so that it isn’t even funny in spite of how ridiculous it is, just depressing. Besides, any actual drama with Yuuki working is hopeless since I (and I’ll assume everyone else) never liked her in the first place. The only way I can see to have made scene work is to do what this series does best – over the top ridiculousness. Yuuki’s golem should have been a ramen bowl or something, and Ayumu could charge through a bullet cloud of noodles, having his dress ripped apart in the process, to defeat the golem by drinking all the broth, which would transform into Yuuki and a bonus kiss scene. Why do so many comedy series feel the need to insert some terrible corny drama?

I’ve noticed that Sera’s insults seem to be improving from the rather generic piece of s**t which accounted for every other word out of her mouth in the earlier episodes. The “wait, you always looked like that” in particular was perfectly timed.

This show’s episodes have really been hit or miss with me – about half, such as last week’s and the whale episode, were pretty funny, but the rest have been very disappointing. Unfortunately this week’s episode falls squarely in the miss category.

The main problem is that Yuki is not an interesting character. Over half of this episode involved watching her blush about becoming a “wife”. It wasn’t funny last episode and it’s even less funny now. And this episode didn’t make up for it by having her defeat monsters with ramen.

The rest of the episode, with Haruna being jealous, was certainly an improvement in terms of boredom over the earlier parts. It did seem out of character for Haruna though. Why is she suddenly admitting that she likes him now? Well, whatever.

Pretty much the only part of the episode that made me chuckle was when Ayumu was surprised to see Haruna wearing clothes, so this was definitely a low-point on the comedy front. Even Eu’s voiceover was disappointing this week. I probably would have laughed at the background images before they left the Mask Donald’s, but my brain was still waking up from the rest of that scene.