While the last couple of episodes of Kyouran Kazoku Nikki actually proved to be a pretty decent two-part affair, sadly it seems that the tenth episode have the series has sunk not just to mediocrity, but into what was simply a plain poor offering.Although I suppose bonus points should be handed out for any episode featuring pirates, even friendly pirates who trade in mackerel, there really isn't much substance to this particular offering at all, leaving the series to fall back on its old routine of everyone talking at a million miles an hour in an attempt to be zany. Put simply, it doesn't work.While this series so far has had the sense to concentrate on the main characters in varying ways, the loss of that focus in this episode is largely to blame for its lack of anything interesting to grasp to - Indeed, even the themes of morality and the importance of family that have run throughout this series seemed to vanish here, replaced with little more than a 'kill everyone' mentality on Kyouka's part, which seems like a backwards step for the series as a whole.I'm half-tempted to label episode ten of this series as 'filler', as it certainly seems at odd with everything else we've seen from this show of admittedly wildly varying quality. Even by its own inconsistent standards however, this was very much an episode to avoid.
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