Makoto, posing as the missing Princess Fatora, according to tradition must journey up Mt. Muldoon to visit the high priestesses who control The Eye of the Gods. Meanwhile Makoto's diabolical nemesis and former student council president, Katsuhiko Jinnai, and his legions of Bugroms, must stop him.

In roughly four seconds "The World of Beautiful Girls" justifies its title as Makoto receives his formal introduction to Ailelle, only proper since he shares his bed with her at the time. The next morning she joins him and Fujisawa Sensei on their trip up the perilous mountain. Ah, young lesbians in puppy love- they're so cute at that age. Meanwhile on the other side of the world Jinnai, the first person to rise to the rank of supreme warlord while still wearing his school uniform, cozies up to the oh-so-evil Queen Diva (a relative, no doubt, of the VH1 oh-so-evil Divas) who also suits the episode's title.

Having reached the summit of the mountain, Makoto learns that the priestesses have gone on retreat for a purification ritual in a distant desert. If you are as disappointed as Makoto at these developments then perhaps you will be as pleased as I am upon learning that the secret retreat is a hot springs, and the ritual of purification is, in a word, skinny dipping. Director Hayashi devotes most of "The World of Hot Springs" to the performance of this blessed, naked ritual.

While at the hot springs, Sensei, on whom one of the priestesses forms a crush, must remain blindfolded so as not to glimpse at the nude priestesses. However, Makoto, still in convincing drag, can and does glimpse to his hearts content … until his girlfriend Nanami shows up selling lunches and exposes him. I mean that literally. This starts quite a hubbub amongst the wet, nude, superhuman, holy ladies. Fortunately everyone makes up before the assassin arrives.

While Makoto suffers thusly, his rival Jinnai devises a cunning plan (really just a plan). To compete with the Eye of God that the priestesses control, Jinnai plans to awaken the "Legendary demon god Ifurita," who ravaged the land during ancient wars (when ravaging was all the rage). Queen Diva dares to doubt Jinnai's wisdom since he has no plan to control the demon god once awoken. But Jinnai is more a nefarious visionary than a pragmatist. Naturally, Makoto and his allies hear of the plan and race to stop Jinnai, which gives us the series' first real cliffhanger. . .

There is a theory in drama that the most interesting way to begin a story is in the middle and not at the beginning of the action. Heeding this, "El Hazard" should have started with "The World of Beautiful Girls." Sure the first episode contains several thousand trivial details of ancient prophecies, character development and needless justifications, but volume two's episodes actually entertain. Slowed only by a minute or two of exposition, it plows full steam ahead to Makoto and Jinnai chasing each other up and around a mountain.

Unless you've read my review of the first episode you can't imagine the satisfaction of seeing "El Hazard" actually focus on one story and tell it well. Not only have director Hiroki Hayashi and writer Ryde Tsukimura elected to tell one story at a time, they have settled on a single tone for "The World of Beautiful Girls." Happily they chose to work in the one style that succeeded in the first episode, unabashed camp.

Despite a paint by numbers plot, Hayashi milks entertainment value out of the details. A scene without words - just the sound of a Bugrom army chanting and hailing as Jinnai parades into the square of a conquered, burning city, cackling madly all the while - doesn't serve to advance plot. It's an animated dramatic character portrait, and it's cool. With "The World of Beautiful Girls," unlike "Battlefield of Confusion," Hayashi creates enough breathing room in the narrative for such flights of camp as well as some surprisingly funny contrivances.

The episode's greatest virtue is that Seikou Nagaoka's music is now being played on real instruments, rather than a WalMart keyboard. The production budget obviously increased after the first episode, also allowing for shots with more than one or two layers so that the camera can pan into and through settings, not just across them. Instruments or not, I still don't actually like the music; and regardless of the improved art, some of the fight scenes are still marred by jumpiness and rigid character movements. The sketchy patches of animation are never bad enough to be funny, unlike the dialogue.

"The World of Hot Springs" shamelessly attempts to distract from a trite story riddled with implausible coincidences and no character development by exploiting gratuitous nudity, cheap slapstick and cute little critters. Bravo. Screenwriter Ryde Tsukimura makes no attempt to hide the plot's flaws, but frankly it doesn't matter. No sooner does Jinnai curse that he doesn't have access to anything as powerful as the Eye of God than Diva remembers, "Oh, well there is this demon." No sooner does an assassin with the power of illusion show up to kill Makoto than Nanami discovers that she has the ability to see through magical illusions. How fortuitous. Previous episodes have made clear that "El Hazard's" primary virtues are not story and character development.

Ura, princess Fatora's tabby cat with the ability to transform into a body armor cardigan who now protects Makoto, charms in "The World of Beautiful Girls." In "The World of Hot Springs" we meet Sansuke, a very large cross between Cousin It and a penguin that honks like a goose, whose job consists of applying skin lotion to the women at the springs. He's a very lucky creature until Masamichi Fujisawa, high school teacher/Fist of Justice, shows up. Although neither speaks, both critter characters have an R2D2-like capacity for comedy via timely noisemaking.

"The World of Hot Springs," the most predictable in the series so far, demonstrates little wit. None of the big gags it spends time setting up can compete with the humor inherent in dialogue like, "A flower's life is short. Preserving my beauty makes me melancholy," and, "Shut up or you will bite your tongue." If this were another series I would say that the translator had a tin ear for English speech. However "El Hazard" works best as a parody and I can think of no finer parody of translated dialogue than this script.