My blogging of this series stalled at the third episode because I found Kuu’s incessant, rampant cluelessness and whining to be very irritating. But I was curious to see how KyoTowa compared to Kannazuki and saved up the rest of the series for a marathon viewing. In a sentence: It made more sense than Kannazuki but had less dramatic impact for me. As such, I’d be happy to fork out for the three Kannazuki R1s as and when they turn up in the TSRI bargain bin. KyoTowa, I’ll be deleting my downloads to conserve harddisk space.
That’s not to say that I thought it was bad or that I regretted watching it but I just did not find myself rooting for Kuu or Kyoshiro in the way that I rooted for Chikane in Kannazuki. Even after the Bladerunner revelation for Kuu and Kyoshiro finally realizing that Kazuya-niisan is Not Nice, I still couldn’t open up my black shriveled little heart to them. The constant repetitions of ‘Let’s go. Together!’ felt hamfisted after the Nth time. ‘Go where? And do what!?’ Plus how the pun about Kuu (空) as sky and empty in the title of the final episode (and the series title) was simply orz-inducing and I could just imagine Osaka trying to make one of her uniquely excruciating jokes based on that.
I liked Mika-sama a lot as her backstory and motivation was revealed. MOAR yuri 4TW. But also share the opinions of Xebek, TedFox, Leon and Adun that Setsuna was probably the most interesting and sympathetic character. The blonde meido design probably didn’t hurt either. :3 Shirukii might have wailed at how she cut her hair at the end but it’s a common indicator of moving on as seen with post-Shiroi Sei Satou in MariMite and even Chiyo, at first, thought that Tomo had cut her hair because of a break-up ("No way that’s possible!", laughed Yomi). Speaking of Azumanga (again), I just burst out laughing at the Kuu x Kyoshiro reunion scene because of how the former was running with a Tadakichi-like big white dog in a field of flowers - for me, forever now an immortal euphemism (complete with its own guitar score) for Nyamo’s sexual exploits.
I was also impressed by the work of fansubbers Ayako which took up this series as their inaugural project. A great balance between the numerous factors of speediness of release, quality of translation, video/sound quality and so on. They’ve become my fansub group of choice for series I’m catching this season. Thanks guys for your hard work!