Oh man, so. I don't know what sort of black magic the showrunners have cast on the production pipeline (and other industry commentators are indeed convinced it's wizardry) but it goes without saying that the staff has an immense amount of skill, dedication, and enthusiasm that, during a time when the industry is stretching itself to the breaking point due to overproduction, the staff has been able to put out episodes so polished, animated, confident, and ambitious that other series would be lucky to have even one of during their whole run on what feels like a regular basis. And by dint of that they're making it look easy when the reality of it is that it's anything but. Also as an amusing contrast I watched the tenth episode of Paranoia Agent the other day which was a brutal, cold-blooded satire of how difficult making even a single episode can be when there's monumental incompetence in the chain (all the staff literally die but the director's happy as he pries the tape from the final checker's cold, dead hands because the episode was finished before the deadline!). Obviously greatly exaggerated, but in a present reality where shows are frequently melting it makes you appreciate the tight ship that Nagamine and co. are running right now.
All of that to say that yes, this episode was really damn good, and even that's understating things. That music video was one for the ages and I'm going to have to watch it many more times to catch all the little details put into it, like the unique designs on all the background mob characters, the dude in the background going WTF at the girls passing out, those two Beast Pirate stagehands who are only visible for like a second as Queen rises towards the stage like he's a Gundam rising to the launching deck, King rolling his eyes at the whole thing, etc. Goddamn, what a way to kick off this stage of the arc. It's a cliche to say, but this truly did feel like a movie. Everyone involved absolutely killed it.
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Oh geez it's only visible for a second but I just noticed the reason that guy's going "The fuck?" is because the girl's top came off when she fainted.