English Dub Review: Yurikuma Arashi “Bride-in-the-Box”

There is one unnerving trend in anime that has me more disappointed than anything else. When a major plot point is introduced, and it changes the scope of the show, the writers decide to mute all dialogue to said plot point. Then, the audio kicks in with the reactions to whatever was conveyed. Are you fucking kidding me? I didn’t say it when the last few shows did it, but when the last episode introduced whatever Ginko did to Sumika, then muted this so that it may possibly be revealed next week, but that doesn’t help “Bride-in-the-Box”.

However, what “Bride-in-the-Box” did accomplish was give the teacher, Yurika Hakonaka, the back story she’s been lacking. I kind of called it before, when I said she was a bear. She was the one who killed Kureha’s mother, but framed Ginko for it by saying Kureha’s mother has the pendant Yurika gave Kureha’s mom. It seems to work, because Kureha had the gun aimed on Ginko’s head. Well, it worked until the clusterfuck of her not being able to shoot her turned into Kureha actually aiming again after the mess with the muted dialogue.

I could have done without the episode that was filled with backstory. In fact, besides the few minutes atop the school, it was all a flashback. “Bride-in-the-Box” was like the end of the final Lord of the Rings movie; it just wouldn’t move on. For most of “Bride-in-the-Box”, it was just back story, that tried really hard to make something, to the point where I was hoping that something else would come and change the flow of the episode. Unfortunately, the plot of “Bride-in-the-Box” is going to overflow into next weeks.

How is it possible for a show to go from no plot at all, to a gross overabundance of plot? That’s right, it has to make up for four episodes of no plot and rehashed animations. “Bride-in-the-Box” is the casualty of that overabundance.