English Dub Review: Absolute Duo “Silver Blonde, Yellow Topaz”

Call me sadistic, if you must, but I love when characters go through pretty substantial psychotic breaks. And “Silver Blonde, Yellow Topaz” just keeps pushing Miyabi to the breaking point. Every single time someone mentions Tor in front of her, she drifts off into some obsessive day dream, oftentimes having to be shaken out of it. So, I really don’t mind watching her psyche shatter a little, episode by episode. Okay, so maybe I am sadistic. I’m okay with it.

“Silver Blonde, Yellow Topaz” is really just 24:16 of fan service to the basement dwelling, 16 year old neckbeards who get excited at the sight of a hand-drawn girl in a barely there bikini. The story suffered when World Break did it,  and the jury is still out on how Absolute Duo did it. I think it detracts too much from the story if you’re going to have a bunch of distractions like this. All I can really say is “meh.” The fan service continues when Julie looks like she is having trouble giving a hot dog blow job.

Well, let’s try this again from the beginning. The class has taken a trip to a summer retreat, that turns out to be the branch campus of Kouryou Academy, and the students were the surprise opponents. Speaking of the students, Imari’s back! It may only be for one episode, but it was kind of nice to see her come back in a manner that makes a bit of sense. However, if you watched the episode closely, you can tell that it was someone who knew Tor, just from how she was acting during her attack.

It took almost the entire episode to feel like “Silver blonde, Yellow Topaz” was getting somewhere, and that was because the soldier from last week was talking to Equipment Smith. Their motives are making me feel like Absolute Duo is progressing towards some sort of end game, and that’s good because I almost felt like the show was stalling. These small scenes featuring Equipment Smith and his soldier are doing exactly what they are supposed to do: make me want to see more of them. I guess all I can do now is wait for next week.