All right. Now it’s just getting annoying…

Blood Blockade Battlefront
Studio: BONES
Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama, Science Fiction, Supernatural

One. I want one episode where Leo isn’t subjected to his seemingly legendary amount of bad luck. That or I want them to explain it. They need to come up with a reason of “why him,” without it boiling down to his being a wimp. Seeing him be nothing but a cosmic butt monkey got old ages ago. Now it’s turning into something I can only roll my eyes at. This time he (and a friend. more on that, later) are mugged at the start of the episode. Immediately after that, Leo is struck in the back of the head by a machine belonging to some sort of microscopic lifeform. After a while watching a character be abused that consistently by the universe just ceases to be funny.

Aside from that, there really isn’t much to say about the episode on its own. It’s the first part of a two-parter. It seems as though it’s going to throw a little more of the focus on Brody and Hummer. The two of them get a little more screentime, and it seems that only ever happens when they’re going to be featured heavily. That being said, we didn’t get much more out of them here than we had in the previous season. At least not yet. Of course, the dual nature of the character would warrant more time. But they didn’t seem all that invested in utilizing said time on that development.

The setup of the episode is that an evil micro-organism has done something to a friend of Leo’s. The guy is actually even more of a wimp than Leo, being hardly more than skin and bones, and is extremely self-deprecating, lacking in any form of confidence. But this little villain takes note of this and decides to give him the power he’d always wanted. Needless to say, it goes very badly. The poor guy begins to assert himself a little more, but he soon winds up losing control. It’s a battle of brawn as this hulked-out wimp takes on Brody and Hummer in the streets.

That sounds like it should be awesome, right? Well, it isn’t, really. I mostly chalk this up to the episode being more or less nothing but setup for next week. What little action we get wasn’t particularly thrilling to look at. Helped none by the continuing problem of tons of action scenes lit by what I can only assume was a child’s potato light bulb science fair experiment. It’s certainly not up to the show’s standard when it comes to stylistic and extremely engaging action sequences. Last week’s episode I let slide because action clearly wasn’t the point. And while I can give this one a pass due to the episode being all setup, it doesn’t really do anything else effectively enough (like Zed’s character development scenes) for me to really focus my attention elsewhere.

Overall, I can’t exactly say to Pass this episode because it’s a Part 1. But I can’t Recommend it or even call it Junk Food because it failed to entertain me. I’d say it was Harmless, but the whole thing about Leo having garbage luck is genuinely beginning to annoy me. And since I have nothing else to really distract me from that in the episode, I don’t really know what to call it other than a Chore. But, hey, there are tons of other great shows this season to check out. Even our own, for example.

Or, if you’re still not tired of Leo’s seemingly divine bad luck, the Blood Blockade Battle Front & Beyond is Simulcast on Crunchyroll, Saturdays at 3:10pm EST.