I finally got to see a new episode today, so here's what I thought:

On the whole, I enjoyed the entire episode, both entries at that, I liked the messages that both of them made. The animation seemed to go back and forth between being really poor (the length of character's arms changing, their hand positions when holding something looking weird), and being really fluid and believable (the battle between Kilgor and Loki was really great).

Now, as far as "Buster's Book Battle" goes, I was at first expecting a rehash of "Buster Hits the Books", but there's a lot of differences... just about the only similarity is the underlying of reading a book that you really enjoy, as opposed to just reading for the sake of reading (in this case, Buster trying to read different books to earn points, but not liking what he's read, until Bitzi gives him a co-worker's manuscript about Kilgor the cyborg detective of the 22nd century). It was interesting how only certain books were registered in the IRP system, but others weren't... now, it doesn't come as a surprise to me that an unpublished manuscript wouldn't be registered in the system, but I can see why Ratburn would be surprised at the exclusion of classics like TREASURE ISLAND. The downer ending kind of lives up to expectation, with the mediocre prizes and such, it reflects real life, where kids really can't get decent prizes for anything anymore... heck, cereals hardly have free-inside prizes anymore (last one I got was a prepaid credit card with $5 on it), and toys in Cracker Jack were looooong gone before I was born. I'm curious though, is that whole Loki whatever his name was series supposed to be a parody of anything in particular?

"On the Buster Scale" wasn't quite as good, but still enjoyable... I do like the eventual message of "agree to disagree", because it really does seem like people have come to a point in time where anymore, everybody thinks their opinion is the only opinion that matters, and if anyone else should disagree, then unnecessary debates and disputes errupt, because nobody respects anyone else's opinions. I did like how Brain eventually called Buster out on him limiting his reviewing to the same kind of movies in the same kind of genre over and over again, and always giving them a 10+ rating... I also kind of like how at first, it seems like the others are easily lead based on their different reviews, I've been thinking recently on how despite how much I love NOSTALGIA CRITIC (pre-2013) and his sarcastic and cynical sense of humor, that too many people base their own opinions on certain movies on his reviews, without even seeing the movies for themselves (because face it, nine out of ten times, he says whatever show or movie he reviews is terrible, even though I personally enjoy a number of what he's reviewed).

Oh... and people have been talking about how off-model Francine and Muffy look... I think I may have figured out another reason why that is (aside from the size and shape of their noses/mouths): I've noticed that when they're presented at a 3/4 angle, their eyes appear to be too close together, so that could probably be it.

Also, I have to ask... that Rafi guy working at the Sugar Bowl in "On the Buster Scale"... he sure does sound awfully familiar... that wasn't Michael Yarmush, was it?