This was an exceptional episode, in that it managed to make the rest of the series look decent by comparison. It was plagued by the same problems that the rest of the show has suffered from: it’s filled with preaching about solutions to nonexistent problems, such as the great present vs. future debate, and the setting doesn’t make any sense. This episode was filled with deus ex machina like no other.

Let’s take it from the beginning. We start with a battle between Kimimaro and Souichiro. It was probably the most poorly animated battle in the show, and also the least interesting: there weren’t any cool powers or anything. The battle consisted of Kimimaro and Souichiro hitting each other with swords and screaming about how they’ll protect the people dear to them while asking if the other understood now. Unsurprisingly, no one understood because their entire argument was pointless. I think Kimimaro got cut and half at some point, but then the creators forgot. Mashu and Q fought at the same time and argued about what Souichiro’s sister would really want. The only enlightening nugget I gleaned from the entire battle was when Q told Mashu “I don’t care.” Motion seconded.

While the battle is ongoing, everyone panics and the Japanese Yen becomes worthless. Because of this, everyone can see the Midas money, and it becomes worthless too, for reasons that should be obvious. Of course, this causes Q to transform into Souichiro’s sister and Souichiro has a flashback. Then, as one would logically expect, the C wave hits Japan a second time and has no effect. For reasons that are well explained, the financial district shuts down. In case you couldn’t tell, I was being sarcastic.

The battle is a draw. Kimimaro reverses the printing press and the future comes back. Kimimaro and Mashu share a long (incestuous?) kiss, as some corny music plays in the background.The corny music plays for a really long time. The credits roll. Everyone is happy. Yay.

Kimimaro sees the happy children and his one-sided crush in the park. Everything is well with the world. Oh, and Japan became the 51st state and started using the dollar, because that would totally solve all their economic problems. The clown meets Kimimaro and invites him to come to the financial district. The clown will always be there when there is a future to take as collateral. *tear* Kimimaro looks at the picture he took with Mashu, Q and Souichiro after their battle. He mentions that he forgot to smile. The End.

Overall, C was a very disappointing showing for noitanimA. It had a creative setup, but executed it in such a way that the setting became a liability rather than an asset (ha ha ha ha ha) since it was fraught with deus ex machina, inconsistencies and half-baked ideas.

Now economic trends can be reflected by the power of clowns and North American super entrepreneurs.

C still has its issues— mainly, that the economic mumbo-jumbo, the entire setting and the fighting for the future / present debate make no sense whatsoever— but this episode was a turn for the better with a focus on the battles again. Even if the battles don’t make any sense either, at least they’re entertaining. “Overheated economy!” “Mergers and acquisitions!” “Cannibalization!” The attack names are one part where the economics mumbo jumbo actually kind of works. It’s certainly preferable to the usual attack names. And yes, I realize that one of those three attack names doesn’t fit.

Still, I can’t follow the story. The greedy guy who sells information betrays Mikuni for some reason, but I couldn’t figure out why. IMF girl’s plan is to save the future by destroying the Japanese currency so they can stop losing their future and get wiped off the map by the [C] waves (which still don’t make any sense either). Kimimaro fights a side kick from the guild who I’m not even sure had a name. The clown gives a black card to Kimimaro because he heard voices from the clouds telling him to. Now Kimimaro and Mikuni are prepped to fight the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny.

On a more positive note, I did enjoy the part where the information broker robbed the guild and started tossing money out of helicopters, even if little motivation was given for him to do so. And Mikuni’s asset, Q, is pretty awesome. She looks like a gentler version of Mashu but eats people and assets instead of ramen. Definitely my kind of girl. Wish they’d made more use of her.

The collapse of the Singapore stock market sends shockwaves around the world. Shockwaves in a very literal sense, called “C”, which travel relatively slowly. For the concept that the title of the show emphasizes, you’d think they’d try to at least provide the illusion that they aren’t just making crap up as they go along. And as if the show already didn’t make enough sense, the creators suddenly decide to let people in the financial district mint money from a beating heart in exchange for possible futures. Where did this come from?

Next, IMF girl lectures Kimimaro for a while, making up stuff about his father. She ends with a moving “and now you’re here!” speech as she removes her sunglasses and poses. Kimimaro is deeply moved. Then all the children become homeless men. Kimimaro decides that Souichiro is wrong and decides to take back the future. IMF girl warns him that they may have to use illegal measures, but he is brave and full of confidence. It only took eight and a half episodes and a country disappearing for him to decide to stop pretending to think deeply and to actually do something.

Next, Kimimaro tells Mashu to become his daughter. Then he kisses her. No, Kimimaro, doing those kinds of things to your daughter is not allowed.

The high point of this episode was Mashu getting licked by a dog. As is probably apparent, I’m quite disappointed in the direction this show has taken. It has one of the most creative settings in recent history. Yet it utterly fails at making this setting coherent and consistent. The creators continually pull things out of thin air, and never bother to delve deeply enough into any single aspect of the setting so that it actually makes sense. Half of the show is just spouting economics jargon without any real meaning behind it, just because it sounds cool.

The other half is Kimimaro hanging around and getting lectured at by random people. He is completely useless as a protagonist. It doesn’t help that most of Kimimaro’s lecture series is about comparing whether it’s better to have a present or a future. Am I the only one who thinks this is a stupid question?

In some ways C is similar to Fractale: C is the successor in the Noitanima timeslot, and both have ambitious settings. They both have problems in developing their settings: Fractale jumps around to too many locations and wastes too much time on Clain’s “perversion”, while C wastes time on the great present / future debate and doesn’t really even try to explain the setting aside from spouting more econobabble.

I’m not going to even bother complaining about the English scenes since they were actually pretty good compared to the rest of the episode. It certainly could have been much worse. I feel like I’m being especially harsh on this series, but I was hoping for much more.

The pace is starting to pick up, and this was probably one of the best episodes of C so far. There’s lots going on: Kimimaro’s teacher tries to commit suicide, Japan is decaying, something’s going on with Hanabi (the purple haired girl we haven’t seen since the first episode), Kimimaro burns all his Midas money, and Singapore’s about to be wiped off the face of the Earth.

I’ve been complaining for a while now that Mashu and Kimimaro are the two most boring characters in the show. Kimimaro’s still is usual self, but it seems that things will get more interesting with Mashu shortly. She seems to be related to Kimimaro’s father’s past, and is probably Kimimaro’s sister. Hopefully we won’t get the siscon end. I’m guessing that Souichiro’s asset, similarly, is that girl in the hospital. Perhaps the assets are the futures that are being bet, the futures that could have been.

The biggest flaw of this series is still that none of the econbabble makes any sense. The actual workings of the financial districts remain a black box (i.e., why do they run out of money?) and I doubt that this will be addressed at all. Furthermore, all the philosophical debates about “future” vs “present” are rather silly and pointless in my opinion. I really hope that the ending of this show doesn’t have Kimimaro and Mashu shouting “I believe in the future!” and destroying the financial district with the power of trust. I’m concerned because I can actually picture this happening.