Our little rock is growing up! Tandouji was all “Whatever…” but now he’s all “Yeah!” This gives him the power to be like every other shounen… uh, hero.

Ye…ah? On the surface, it might seem as though this episode is all about Alma’s personal growth, but the anime also implicitly marginalizes everyone else in the story. Hell, Ruri is now just a sugar mommy who also doubles as a damsel in distress whenever it’s convenient.

Pointless side characters
I already mentioned last week how pointless Wakana’s role in the anime seems to be. Things are no different this week. I’m not even positive why she’s in this particular episode — just to give Kagami someone to make idle conversation with, I guess? She doesn’t do battle nor is she a legitimate contender for Alma’s love. As far as we know, there’s nothing remarkable about her either. None of the villains are after her for anything — Ruri took that job as well. As a result, Wakana’s nothing but a rock polisher. Yippee?

So let’s turn our attention elsewhere, particularly to our sourpuss butler. With each passing week, Kagami fades more and more into the background. The guy is just so obviously jealous that some rockhead gets to play savior instead of him. It’s actually quite funny to watch Kagami’s development. Let’s be honest — Kagami is this Harvard educated butler with nowhere to go in his career. His career prospects are stagnant. In the meantime, while Ruri grows ever closer to Alma, Kagami grows ever the more stoic:

Look at him sitting there as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. We all know, however, that this is just a facade. Ruri and Alma got caught cheating so there’s this big uproar in class. A normal person would at least glance over to see what was going on. Kagami could at least check up on his friends. That’s right — Ruri might be his ojousan and Alma might be some idiot, but they are still Kagami’s friends… or rather, they should be. But Kagami is obviously bitter about something so he ignores them — some friend he is. Then look at the trollface he tries to give here:

C’mon, bro. Is Mr. Harvard Man really picking on a high school student? As punishment for his poor behavior, Kagami becomes marginalized. He’s utterly, utterly useless:

Kagami attacks a giant otaku monster, but the thing doesn’t skip a beat. It marches on and completely ignores the butler poking its stomach. Just give it up, Kagami. Even the villains don’t care about you. Go back to Harvard and pick up a new degree or something. You’re worthless here.

What the hell are we fighting?
Is that… is that the Green Giant?

We also have the giant otaku monster with a shining nipple (which hachimitsu absolutely couldn’t stop laughing about):

Oy. This should be campy, but I just find the art direction kind of pathetic. There was also that lousy light show at the end of the episode:

Why bother if you’re not going to even try?

Lack of fanservice
I’ve been ragging on this show all season long, but let’s give credit where credit’s due: the show pretty much has no cheap fanservice. Oh sure, a lot of us were incredulous by the seemingly pointless inclusion of maids to the story, but honestly, they’re barely featured in the anime. This shot of some maid on her stomach in frilly thighhighs is as lurid as Sacred Seven seems to get:

Not only that, none of the females are tripping and bearing their panties to anyone. There are no gratuitous bathing scenes. The anime is just clean, stupid fu-… okay, it’s not really fun, but it’s clean. And damn it, that’s gotta be worth something, right? Maybe this is why Sunrise seems to be making up for lost fanservice time with next season’s Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon. It does make you wonder though: who is Sacred Seven really marketed to?

Sure, there are some people out there who will like anything, so I’m not talking about them. Every anime is aiming to appeal to a certain crowd, right? You don’t just dump money into a project without considering your target demographic — that’s just not how businesses work. So if the action is kinda lame, the fanservice is non-existent, and the romance isn’t multifaceted enough to attract the saps, just exactly who did Sunrise think this anime would appeal to?