An episode that's going to work if you're an animal lover, but you'll probably hate and think is lame if you're not. I like animals, so I find this episode to be the cute, whimsical tale it's meant to be.
Haruna saves an injured puppy from being run over. In a Typically Toku Turn of Coinkydink, the Bouma-Beast that Jinba uses this week is based off an evil dog god, who has the ability to change humans to dogs and dogs to humans. When the Bouma-Beast comes across the recovering puppy, he's curious to find out what happened to one of his fellow dogs and gets it to communicate -- the puppy says he wants to become human and get to thank Haruna for helping him. Well, there's only one Haruna that Jinba knows, so he gets the Bouma-Beast to grant the puppy's wish and use him as bait to trap Haruna.
The dog-boy eventually meets up with Haruna and is awkward around her; I like when Shiron is shown to be watching the situation, sensing something is off about the kid, the four guys are kinda doubtful and Dazai is like "You have to trust Shiron's instincts! Get your asses out there and investigate!"
Once the dog-boy unknowingly leads Haruna into Jinba's trap, he's reverted back to being a dog. I don't mean to be mean about this kid actor, because he's FAR from being the worst kid actor in a toku show, but the scene doesn't play as sad as it should because he's wooden and just kinda going through the motions. While Haruna's in the process of being turned into a dog by the Bouma-Beast -- Kinohara again getting to display her Scream Queen screams -- the dog dashes out, looking for help, eventually leading Riki and the rest to the secret lair in time. (It's interesting that Youhei remains the skeptic of the group; he laughs at Haruna earlier when she talks to the dog, and he thinks Riki's nuts when he thinks the dog is trying to lead them to Haruna. Youhei was previously skeptical of things like the folklore of Kintaro. You'd think Daichi would be the skeptic of the group, but he's more open-minded than characters like him usually are.)
Not the most essential episode, but it's meant to be cute and it succeeds at what it's setting out to do. Look at that cute dog, c'mon. This puppy does a lot of the episode's heavy lifting.
That's one cute puppy! I like that this episode really shows off Haruna's sweeter side, hanging around the dog/kid and really enjoying their company (aside from the awkwardness of the kid doing dog tricks). She also gets a good strategic movement, using training commands to trick the monster.
ReplyDeleteI like the monster design and the choice to make this a Jinba episode (given his transformation into his armored state). He gets some good swordfighting moments and bits with his body language, which is to be expected from a Naoki Oofuji character.
I'm not keen on the kid actor, either. He's got a case of cue card-itis, but that kind of makes sense with the character (dog doesn't know how to "act human"). The transformation sequence doesn't even have him unleash some high-pitched wail like many of his contemporaries displayed in shows from this period. It pales in comparison to Kinohara's horror movie screams (Dana Kimmell from Friday the 13th Part 3 would be the closest English-language equivalent, IMO) and the optical effect department's light extravaganza.