Welcome back to Great Japan, where six months have passed since the battle against Amakusa. Muneakira's been on the road since then, but he's finally returned to the Yagyu dojo - to find that the place seems to have been turned into a Moe Moe Maid Cafe. It was all Yukimura's idea. While Muneakira's been gone, Sen's brother Yoshihiko - he who caused their problems in the first place - has been taking the credit for saving the day, leaving the girls rather short of money. And to add to their problems, there's a group looking to challenge them for control of the dojo...
"Moe - the keyword to making money", explains Yukimura as she tries to justify turning the dojo into a maid cafe. It's taken a loan to do that, and with the collateral on the loan being, err, the dojo, they have to start making money soon. There's problem #1. Problem #2 comes in the form of the Dark Samurai - Musashi Miyamoto, Kojiro Sasaki, Mataemon Araki and Inshun Houzoin - who would very much like to face true-form Jyubei - who Muneakira seems to be incapable of summoning up at the moment. Uh-oh.
On the one hand, the maid cafe is a 'wtf?' development. On the other hand, half of this show's appeal is in the antics of the girls, and I can't deny there a certain base appeal to Sen-hime in maid gear. On that level, it works for me. And the eternal bickering between the gang, and relentless bullying of poor Kanetsugu, is all present and correct from last time around, too. This makes it easy to set expectations for the rest of the series - a lot of fun poking fun at the girls, and a little bit of serious story arc to eventually deal with towards the end.
THE GOOD: The good points of Samurai Girls are all still here, and the maid cafe concept at the very least doesn't ruin matters. Absurd, but fun.
THE BAD: Hard enough keeping track of all the characters without adding another four to get used to. Inksplotches back in full force.
The first season was a good, enjoyable guilty pleasure for me, and I'm expecting this season to be much the same. This episode tells me that the show isn't going to stray too far from its proven formula, and that's good enough for me for now.
Samurai Bride is streamed by Crunchyroll (North America only).
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