just watched ep. 41.
Man, I almost started to cry.
In all honesty, repeating myself from what I wrote over at MyAnimeList, I thought 40 and 41 were incredibly cheaply written. It almost feels like the director doesn't like Aki to have her chararacter develop in such a totally stupid way. I actually thought that her backstory would be somewhat original, but instead it's kinda generic, not to mention I think I've never seen such a moronic father in anime than Izayoi Hideo. What father calls his seven year old daughter a monster? Or even hits such a small girl? And then, at the very end, as if to simply wrap the entire thing up at last, she has a 180 degree change of heart and goes from "I no longer need you" to "I love you" within 3 minutes.
Not to mention I couldn't help but laugh that her mother was just standing around, doing nothing, as if she wasn't even part of the plot. Oh, and yet again, every episode Aki has major involvement in has crappy animations. 40 more so than 41, but the latter still had incredibly badly drawn in-betweeners.
I should note that this wasn't even a quick camera turn or anything, but actually a zoom out in normal speed from Yusei in the background to Aki's father in the foreground and it stayed like this the entire time. WTF?
I sure as hell hope that Aki will continue to develop further in the future and this isn't everything we'll get for the rest of the series. I'm hoping for more development between Yusei and Aki (if Jack does, why not the MAIN main character?) as well as the stuff regarding Divine and the Arcadia Movement. I seriously doubt he's dead. There's still the stuff he told Lua about using Psycho Duelists to take over the world and I'm hoping that the little hyperactic wannabe-Signer starts remembering to tell her about that soon.
Now excuse me, I'll go watch the raw of 42.
EDIT Episode 42:
Seriously, Aki smiling happily is creeping me out. It so doesn't suit her. She needs to be angsty and emo, what the hell are the writers doing to her? Other than that, not much happening this episode, mainly recap/filler, but unlike the previous series, the characters at least narrate and discuss the events instead of getting to hear the same dialogue all over again several times. Also Aki is now aware of what the Arcadia Movement has done, at least that they were taking children in and forced them on their development of Psycho Dueling powers. They're also still dodging the question of who the fifth Signer is, but I think chances are highter that it's Godwin rather than Lua. They also confirmed what everybody already knew, Dark Signers are all already dead.
Also next episode, Atlas Punch [tornado fang] yeah.
And on the random note, I just saw something on Janime which I didn't want to see, it's a magazine scan about the Wheelie Breakers game for the Wii:
Luca and Aki riding D-Wheels, I pray to God that that's only for the game and won't be included in the anime... also shows what I meant about Aki smiling...