10 Second Anime - Musaigen no Phantom World - Episode 8

A monkey infested hot spring phantom invades the school and it's up to Haruhiko's team to find a way to defeat it.

Episode 8 - "Break Through the Monkey Hot Spring!"

Heh.

If anybody still thought this show was a fantasy sci-fi mystery first and a comedy second after seven episodes, I would hope the eighth episode convinced them Phantom World is all about the comedy with a  little sexiness thrown in to spice up the humor.

Also, banana peel humor. Don't see a lot of that these days.

Most of the self-contained phantoms of the week episodes have always answered the question of why they manifested at this particular time. I had thought it was because of a real world influence on the phantoms, like the lost kitten entering the cat mansion last week or Mai's "friends" from the past fulfilling a promise, but this week it was phantom only. The big cyclops monkey went on a licking bender because his wife left him. Does time work the same way for phantoms when left up to their own devices? I don't know, but at least we were given some motivation for the comedic hijinks.

It took 8 episodes, but the big pink octopus appeared! Of course, it's Cthulhu. Who makes sounds like a young pig...

Enter the Bath!

One of the hallmarks of great comedy is repetition. I'm only showing the good looking women coming through the traditional hot springs curtain, but a couple dudes did too.

The big joke for Himeno Sensei coming through the curtain at the end was offering a solution to banish the big monkey whose wife just left him. The convention is that the calm school doctor is usually a spinster still looking for a husband. Instead of offering herself as the "bride" to send the monkey god back to heaven, she made Haruhiko dress in drag to do it. No reason given. Just a comedic twist for laughs.

Dat Ruru.

I always find it puzzling how the school tolerates Ruru flying around Haruhiko's head. Friendly phantom or not, that's a little too lax considering how dangerous phantoms can actually be. Sometimes I wonder if Ruru isn't the main character and Haruhiko is a phantom too, maybe another of Mai's "friends" from childhood. Oh, he's probably a real person, but it's fun to think about.

Ruru Flirting Sensei.

Ruru is harsh task master! Smack dat Reina butt! Also, Koito has no idea how to even start flirting. She should have stuck to the shy bashful act she had with Haruhiko. Ah, but that was based on actual interaction. Here, she's trying to get a big monkey's attention and the usual way she got big monkey's attention (read that as boys...), she ignored them in an obvious display. Ruru's methods are much more straightforward.

I'm pretty sure Ruru learned about flirting from Haruhiko's "magazines."

Another thing I like about the camera work with Ruru is how out of focus the background gets because we have to focus on a much smaller being close to our faces. Those are nice animation touches.

What? There Was Plot?

Well, there was PLOT and then there was plot. It was actually a lot of comedy built upon character development from past episodes, which is effective comedy. I found myself laughing out loud several times during the episode. Kurumi's yellow rake scene was a highlight, especially tied together with the big monkey's "no lolis" policy.

The first act was hilarious with all the cheering from the crowd as fan favorites walked through the curtain. Obviously, Mai is Best Girl for girls, boys and phantoms.

Dat Trojan Ass.

This gambit was pure failure comedy. No part of mixing the mythological with the literal with a drama club costume was going to work, yet Haruhiko still got his hands on Mai's butt even before the main comedic set piece.

I can only imagine all the variations on hug pillows of Mai in her gym uniform...

Koito's Too Hot.

One thing that helps character driven comedy is to introduce a frivolous tic or vulnerability and play that new thing off established character traits. For tough girl Koito, not being good with heat and having her repeatedly pass out in the same manner was a good way to include her in pratfall comedy. From what we saw previously, I didn't think it possible to portray her in an unserious manner, but here we are. Passed out with an ice pack on her head!

I talked about repetition being the cornerstone for comedy earlier, and the Koito flop was used to good effect when even the phantom monkeys started doing it. Good laughs all the way around.

Reina Rejected.

The monkeys didn't like Reina-chuwan! Apparently she doesn't have the, ahem, charms that Mai has. Even though her flirting was much better than Koito's, neither had the proper equipment. No-assitol is a terminal disease, it seems.

Spotlight Mai.

The last few episodes have been focused on filling out the harem and making sure they work well together, so Mai has been left on the sidelines in terms of focus and fanservice since the first episode. It's not surprising that once she was the focus again, that same manic energy of the first episode started shining through in this one. The difference, of course, was her butt instead of her breasts and she didn't have even a chance to rub a body part to activate her power. No wonder her hidden feelings for Haruhiko deepened a little bit after seeing his competence.

One thing I was disappointed in not seeing was the mole on her inner thigh. There were enough angles for that location to be seen, so where was it?

Dat Mai Red Monkey Butt!

Did it have to be Mai's butt painted red? Yes, of course! Not just because we need that sweet, sweet Mai fanservice, but because she'd been licked by the big monkey the most without being incapacitated. Mai is Best Girl, don't you know?

Obviously, it wasn't enough for Mai just to wear her red bloomers. Obviously... The point here was to make Haruhiko's talent with painting get folded into a sensual and intimate moment with a girl who's secretly infatuated with him. The exclamation point on using Haruhiko's talent was how he summoned Cthulhu without an artist's pad. See? All he needed was the inspiration of painting on a canvas different than what he hangs on a flat easel. Is there nothing Mai's red butt can't do?

I like red butts and I cannot lie! Let's not think too deeply on how the target in question is not a monkey interested in a red display, but a cyclops ape. Let's just remember the journey Mai's ass had to make to get here. I salute you, red butt of Mai Senpai!

Plot-wise, this was all a device for two things. One: finally introduce the pink octopus we've been seeing since the first episode credits. And two: show Haruhiko learning how to summon without a piece of paper. He was useless in Kurumi's world because he didn't have his art supplies. And now he can summon something that isn't afraid to take a bath. Poor puppy Marchosias...

On the character front, the flags for the Mai route have all been tripped, so I guess we're ready to tackle that mysterious device Ruru found. I'm hoping the story's tone remains light, considering how entertaining the unserious comedy has been. Because, in a world where phantoms cause serious incidents, having an entire school courtyard taken over by sexually harassing monkeys without the teachers taking it seriously either means they're very good at judging threats or we're not supposed to see those terrible things except to just know about them as background information. Like knowing Koito has experience with these life threatening things, but not really focusing on them.

This show is all about painting red dots on butts to help phantoms go back to the other shore without violence. Red butts, banzai!