The biggest fight of the series gets underway, just in time to wrap things up.

What They Say:
“It Seems That the Problem Children Prove Who’s On Top?”

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Problem Children draws to a close with the tenth episode of the series, though it certainly leaves more than enough there for a follow-up to happen. With there being six light novels out there,it’s easy to imagine that there’s more material to work with. And the light novels have had two spinoff manga series kicked into production as of 2012, so that offers up a bit more potential and a chance to draw in more fans. Yet for me, the series has been a disaster from almost the first episode with what it’s done and how it’s done it. So it’s little surprise that with the tenth installment, it’s only saving grace once again is all the action that it has, which is fairly well animated even if it continues to be a bit soft.

With the game having been paused for most of the previous episode, something that lead to lots and lots of dialogue and talk between the characters as they tried to figure out what’s really going on, everything got put back on track towards the end. And that has lead to this episode which kicks off with the action and just barrels through it as the various sides go at it in order to win and achieve their respective goals. Part of what makes it work is that if you’ve watched it and connected with these characters, it’s easy to get behind the action and enjoy the forward progress the show has made in making this particular community more and more powerful as it’s gone on. But for me, who never found the characters engaging and still has no real clue who they were before they came to this world, a point that I think is sorely needed to be dealt with, it’s just colorful action against a dark background unfolding. Pretty, like fireworks, but empty of real meaning.

The show spends the majority of its time on the action and it works effectively to showcase a wide range of abilities as Izayoi, Kasukabe and Asuka deal with an array of opponents who all have their own fantastic powers. What gets me about the show is that as it goes on, the lead characters all seem to keep coming up with abilities that aren’t hinted at and are mastered at a moments notice in order to fight who they’re up against. It’s like there’s an internal consistency to the show that only the creators are privy to, so screw the rest of us and just enjoy the ride. Which can work for some, but it doesn’t work for me. There’s a little nod towards the end as the show has the credits run over the main program as we see how everyone is doing things they want to do and are generally happy, making it seem like something was accomplished. Even with giant robots tilling the land! How awesome.

In Summary:
Problem Children are coming from Another World, aren’t they? was a series that I thought got off to a bad start but would settle out after an episode or two and lay out more clearly what it was and what it wanted to be and about. But as it went on, it just fell further and further into silliness, poor structure and terrible storytelling. The saving graces continued to be the action sequences themselves as they have a certain energy about them with the animation style and quality, but that couldn’t sustain it. I kept waiting for the show to hit a turning point, and wondering why it was having such fervent fans talking about it with each new episode, but it simply was a show that I could not connect with in just about any way when it came to the cast. It’s the kind of show where I feel lucky to know the characters names in general, since what we know about them makes it seem like we shouldn’t care about them. If there’s a second season, we’ll be passing on that easily.

Grade: D

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.