Another very solid episode of Tenchi Souzou Design-bu, even if it didn’t make me laugh quite as much as the last couple (a little too heavily weighted in favor of the “cuteness” this time).

• Death’s-head moths are very cool.  But I suppose it’d be scary if you’d never seen one before.
• That whole “Ueda goes to Hell” cliffhanger turned out to be a giant nothingburger.  I did rather like the idea of Hell as a startup though, especially when we segued into the whole theme park idea.
• Hell being a much easier client to work with than Heaven is something I can totally see happening.
• The Cerberus thing was easy to see coming, but some funny moments in there.  Especially the bit with the three heads “breaking up” over their tastes in music.  The whole music thing was a pretty smart little gag, actually, given the mythological context.

The bulk of the second half is given over to the otter, so that it was a bit of a cuteness overload was understandable.  Otters are, after all, one of the most insanely cute animals on the planet (though they have a nasty streak to their personality).  But once more we see Tenchi Souzou Design-bu doing a pretty accurate riff on the evolutionary process here.  Otters are one of those animals that don’t make a lot of sense superficially, so going down the checklist and explaining their oddities one by one is a really smart way to shed some light on the science involved.

I’ve always admired the ability of a series to use comedy to enlighten something real, and this show absolutely demonstrates the ability to do that.  It’s not life-changingly brilliant or anything, but subtle and smart enough to be effective.  There are definitely a couple more gears here that could be found with the characters, and I have no idea whether it will find them or not.  If it does evolve in that way Heaven’s Design Team could really level up as a series.  As is though, it’s still quite entertaining and well worth your time.