Haiyore! Nyarlko-san W episode 03 review
這いよれ！ニャル子さん W

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

After arriving at Alaozar, Nyarlko and company defeat a massive number of aliens waiting for them. Mahiro wonders why Zhar and Lloiger would be doing in a place like this when Nyarlko remembers she still hasn’t returned her library book and indeed has it on her. Mahiro questions whether this could be the book Zhar and Lloiger were after. Nyarlko says no way, but Mahiro points to how in fact this could be so, leading Cthuko to figure Nyarlko having the book was in fact foreshadowing. Nyarlko tells a story where in the future, she’s recounting this very adventure to her children, born to Mahiro, where Hastur, Cthuko, and Shanta-kun were dead. Naturally, Mahiro and the others aren’t so keen on this.

Zhar and Lloiger show up and they are indeed looking for a book, but it wasn’t the one Nyarlko had, but one Mahiro had looked at in the library and had accidentally put in his pocket during the excitement. Zhar and Lloiger combine into Zhar-Lloiger after surviving a massive double attack by Cthuko and Nyarlko. Taking the book from Mahiro, the reveal that with the use of their pen, it is a memo pad, thus they create the great monkey deity, Alaozar. They reveal they are with Space Tindalos, and environmental group who’ve lost funding thanks to the Space Alliance, and they want money badly.

Mahiro launches a massive fork attack, which surprises Zhar-Lloiger since the forks do so much damage. Zhar-Lloiger orders Alaozar to attack, so the giant ape slams “him” into the wall, then goes to attack Nyarlko and the others. Cthuko and Nyarlko transform into their battle garb and attack, but their initial attacks are unsuccessful. Nyarlko does her version of a reigan attack, knocking the giant beast down, but it doesn’t take long to recover, then become even more powerful in a golden form. Nyarlko realizes that they are going to need more help, so Cthuko agrees to hold Alaozar off while Nyarlko gets said help.

Ordering Shanta-kun to protect Mahiro, tossing a threat in to get her point, Nyarlko then causes Hastur to start to transform, reminding Mahiro that it was Hastur who always stopped the fights between she and Cthuko. Cthuko gets swatted back through the air, so Mahiro catches her, much to Nyarlko’s dismay. Hastur hasn’t completed his transformation, but he is still able to send out a defensive attack that removes one of the ape’s arms. The now adult Hastur launches a massive wind attack that slams the ape into the wall at the far end of the cavern they are in.

Hastur thanks Mahiro for being kind to his other self, but Alaozar isn’t dead.  The giant ape gets up and starts racing towards the group, so Nyarlko, Cthuko, and Hastur use their special combined attack to penetrate Alaozar’s thick hide and pass through his gut. Alaozar still won’t die and indeed regenerates completely. The ape then proceeds to beat on the trio while Mahiro, protected by Shanta-kun, gets the book back and discovers the secret of the memo pad. He erases Alaozar’s name and the ape is defeated. Later at school, Mahiro tells the group that he wasn’t happy with how things ended. Tamao comes up to find out what happened and Nyarlko gets a reminder to return her overdue book and more.

Thoughts/Review:

So, we finally get to see Hastur’s battle form. I had to laugh at the choice of SEKI Tomokazu as the voice of the adult Hastur. Considering the parody nature of the Haiyore! Nyarlko-san franchise, I’m guessing that choosing Seki-san for this role and having him sound like Archer/Gilgamesh (whom he voiced) from the Fate/stay night franchise was done on purpose.

Hastur’s being some kind of tough guy has long been teased in both of the proper anime series.  The downside to teasing something for that long is that it tends to bring up expectations to a degree higher than what the production team can deliver. Hastur sounding like Archer was cool, but he really didn’t show me anything that special, even if his defense attack cut off one of Alaozar’s arms. It would have been fun if Hastur had used Kaze no Kizu, one of Inuyasha’s favorite wind attacks.

Nyarlko did use Yuusuke’s reigan (aka: spirit gun) attack from Yu Yu Hakusho. I thought that was pretty cool.

I know the ape is a parody from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT, though I’ve never seen either.

Nyarlko’s “…Judgment desu yo!” reminded my of Kuroko from A Certain Scientific Railgun, as that’s one of her catchphrases, but the scene is from one of the Power Ranger’s franchise (Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger).

While still on the parody front, I’m disappointed that the hand grenade scene didn’t contain the same Monty Python reference that the original light novel had. That would have rocked my world if it had been retained.

I loved the twist on the foreshadowing, where the obvious route was Nyarlko’s book rather than the one Mahiro had been looking at (and accidentally palmed) in the library.

The whole “write something on a special book and make it happen” isn’t new, nor is the solution that Mahiro came up with, whereby erasing what was on said book removed those things from reality. I know I’ve seen this a couple of times before, but for the life of me, I’m not remembering where.

Fortunately, the ecchi content was a lot lower this time. Nyarlko’s “meditation” while telling Tamao an ero version of what was going on was one such moment. Obviously, Cthuko’s battle suit is ecchi, as was the “iku” joke that was made.  I’m not thinking of anything else at the moment.

Anyway, a pretty fun episode, though I don’t recall really laughing. Still, I had an enjoyable time, and that’s what matters most. ^_^