Kamiina Botan, Yoeru Sugata wa Yuri no Hana Ep.03 - This art style was kind of...

Episode 3 of Kamiina Botan: Yoeru Sugata wa Yuri no Hana honestly surprised me with the art style they decided to pursue. I heard that the series supposedly changes directors every episode, which means you'll be seeing various styles at each turn, but...

This was genuinely bad, hard to follow, and low quality. An utter disaster. I immediately realized that they wanted to copy the style of Studio Shaft from the Hidamari Sketch era, but the actual quality and consistency weren't there, making every scene look and feel like a complete mess.

The eyecatches were both great which confirm that they can do it, but they pigeonholed into that style

I'm not a fan of the 'sexy' thing they were trying to do here with Botan, but quality is good.

The characters felt disfigured rather than stylized like those in Hidamari Sketch, and it honestly distracted me enough that I couldn't enjoy it, despite the cute yuri scenes. It is a matter of trying too hard to be artistic when the medium really isn't asking for it.

Be aware, I fully understand that they are experimenting and that it was made this way intentionally (see the scene where it switched to a grayscale manga style), but the end result just wasn't good enough to justify the choice. If you are trying something adventurous, I think you should do it only if you are certain of the result.

The content itself was fine, with Botan and Ibuki getting closer through various events linking them together—like Botan's fear of thunder in the first part, which leads her to want to sleep with Ibuki to feel safer, or their trip to an onsen in the second half (making Kanade feel jealous).

We even get to see a bit of Akane Yusa, the "yuri partner" of Kitamori Yaeka from last week, showing her passion for music and how close the two are. It did feel a bit on the short side, but that could be because my eyes were jumping around, trying to resist the urge to close the episode due to the animation.

This is one of the few shots that I found cute in the episode, Yaeka looks great in the deformed style.

Just look at this, is this supposed to be good? I'm confused here, Hidamari Sketch characters were better...

Now I am praying to see what they will do next week; hopefully, the new style will be something that actually works for this series. I actually like the premise and the characters, but I realize now just how important the visual aspect is when it comes to enjoying an anime series.