Pop Team Epic Season 2

Episode 5

Hey, all. My editors would like me to address the “creative liberties” that I took with my first Pop Team Epic Season 2 review from last week, and they're apparently really committed to this little joke of theirs, insisting that the bizarre package I received in the mail wasn't some kind of elaborate marketing stunt on behalf of the PTE staff or any of its affiliates. If that's the spin they want to go with, then fine, I guess we'll all just go with the “alternative” theory some local whacko just so happened to discover my work as a critic, find my address, and then proceed to perfectly time and execute elaborately constructed piece of psychological harassment art to screw with me at the exact point in time that I had to cover an infamously weird and bizarre cartoon. Right.

Well, whatever. It's not like it matters anyways, since I lost track of where I put those creepy dolls and that pile of tapes a few days ago, when I got back from my “leave of absence”.

Oh, right. The whole reason that nobody could reach me after that first review dropped was because I suddenly started having some of the worst sleep of my entire life (and that's saying something). Insomnia, night terrors, and even a couple of bouts of sleepwalking, if my wife is to be believed. I've been under a lot of stress lately, both with my writing and in my job as a teacher, and the doctors at the sleep clinic assured me that these sudden bouts of severe sleep-cycle disruption aren't that uncommon. Bad timing, to be sure, but I'm back from my brief stint of sleep-observation and I've got a clean(ish) bill of health, so let's talk Pop Team Epic.

This week's episode is called “Shining Shoulder”, and the main sketch is one of those comically over-produced segments that this season has been doubling down on. It's actually a pretty funny musical number set to a fantasy metal track. There's also a random bit featuring Popuko and Pipimi as trains that led me down the rabbit hole of researching Japanese memes about foreigners and obnoxious train nerds. In other news, Pop Team Epic: Side-B is apparently canceled? In other words, it sure was an episode of Pop Team Epic.

Am I forgetting anything? I'm sorry, I've just had such an awful time trying to sleep this week that my brain is completely fried. Oh, yeah, there's a new Bob Team Epic, and it—

Huh. That's weird. I could have sworn I just wrote a whole paragraph about Bob Team Epic. Dammit, and I was really proud of that one, too, because I actually managed to go into depth for once on some of the interesting techniques that go into making such an intentionally shitty looking work of—

It's been three hours since I wrote that last bit. I'm not quite sure what I've been doing since then. The sun has already set. The shadows are beginning to fill the room. I just want to sleep.

When the Physician askEd me whAt kindS of things I'd been seeing in my night terrors, I sPit out a chokEd, wAvering laugh, becauSe I honestly didn't know how to tell him what was really haPpEnning in my dreAmS. Dreams are suPPosEd to be nonsensical, sure, they're meAnt to be chaotic, but I waS still so embarrassed to admit that

the face of my PatEntly AbSurd visions was, simPly, a facE. He cAme to me every Single night, without fail. He whisPEred his nAme So quietly that I didn't so much hear it as Ifelt it, PEnetrAting down to the core of my Skull: Bacchus PowEll.

You cAn imagine my SurPrise, my uttEr shock, At Seeinghisface on my comPutEr screen After So many sleePlEss nights. After So many hours sPEnt wAiting. So many hours lying so PErfectly still. Awfully Still.

“One plus one equals two. We're just two peas, peas, in a pod.”

Huh. That's weird. I could have sword I just wrote a whole bunch of paragraphs about…

Wait. Didn't I already.

How long has it been? Why is my nose bleeding?

I think I need to get some sleep.

It'll all make so much more sense if I could just. Sleep.

Rating:

Pop Team Epic Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer and tweeter that is struggling to emotionally comprehend the terrible and unjust cancellation of Pop Team Epic: Side-B. The day of reckoning will come. Trust in Bacchus Powell. Hussell forever.