Another anime has been affected by the virus, and a different 3 girls go in to save it. Seems like this will be how the average episode plays out.
Unfortunately this episode shares many of the issues of the first two. The anime overall so far has felt like I am missing something. Maybe having prior knowledge of the referenced anime (assuming all the anime worlds actually have real life references) or the Pastel Memories game would help with this.
Synopsis
Despite what we saw at the end of the last episode, the owner of the cafe messaged one of the girls saying that sales are down, and that he wanted them to organize an event to help boost sales. Where is this owner that he can’t contribute to the success of his cafe? I understand that he has 12 girls on staff who care about the cafe’s success, but you’d think he could put some more effort in. I guess his style is just to throw money at hiring staff and hoping that his problems will go away somehow.
Anyways, just as the girls are talking about a specific anime, the anime gets infected by a virus! Is Maya listening in somehow? The same thing happened with the last anime. I bet she listens in through their phones or something. Perhaps a virus is being used here too.
I have already forgotten the name of the anime they visit. Something Rosy Dolls? It seems to be about two magical dolls that fight each other – the problem is that the virus has changed their nice dresses to tracksuits. Just like with the last anime, I think that the virus purposely changes details in the anime world to make the anime less appealing, and this somehow causes people to forget about it. Something like this at least.
I honestly couldn’t tell you the names of the three girls that went this time. I forgot to pay attention because it seems like such a task to remember all of their names. The cat girl, other pink haired girl, and some other girl were our heroines this time around though.
Just like with the last episode, it didn’t feel like much had happened in the anime world. A little time in a bedroom, and a little time fighting the virus – they were back in the cafe in no time at all. The episode ended with the cat girl and other girl cosplaying the two dolls from the anime world – I guess this is the event they came up with to boost sales.
A “Little” Improvement
The best moments from the episode were the scenes with the dolls from the anime world. I loved their personalities – they may be small dolls, but they have very large egos and the strength to back it up. The scene where they fought was the best part of the episode I think. The two dolls were just great overall, fun to watch.
When you include the dolls, I’d say this episode had more action than episode 2. I would also say that I enjoyed episode 3 more than the previous two episodes, so the anime made another small step in the right direction.
The fighting in regards to the virus was pretty bland again. The “boss” was another golem just like in episode 2, only this one was larger. It still was defeated within two minutes of its reveal. Maya was blasted off again as well – a little more creativity in her defeats would be neat, but she seems like such a two-bit villain that it’s not a big deal.
Emptiness
While the episode was a little more exciting, the episode (and anime by extension so far) still felt a bit empty. For an anime that is about going into anime worlds and stopping a virus, it feels like nothing really happened in the anime world. I know it was most of the episode, but it just didn’t feel like much occurred.
I just don’t feel invested enough in what is happening, and also it still feels like there is a lack of interesting things happening. Here we are exploring another anime world, and all we really see from it is a bedroom. They fought in a park that was from the girl’s memories, so I believe it doesn’t even count as part of the anime world (although one of the dolls was there with them).
I know the budget likely isn’t comparable, but when I think of this concept I think of Flip Flappers, which delivered so many exciting and vibrant worlds. Each world felt so unique and I was genuinely interested in seeing what type of world they would visit next. I don’t get this feeling so far with Pastel Memories, although I hope that the anime provides at least one world that I enjoy like that.
Maybe Pastel Memories will spend longer than one episode in a world and manage to build a storyline that’s a little more advanced than “visit world, Maya & virus appears, defeat virus golem, go home”. We’ll see.
Overall I’d still say that episode 3 was a slight improvement over episode 2, which was a slight improvement over episode 1. So we are at least moving in the right direction, who knows for how long though!
At the end of the day, while the anime is failing to deliver in terms of action and story, at least it’s got cute girls in cute outfits. Better something than nothing right?
Until next time.
Thanks for reading. 🙂
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