Review: Akiba’s Trip Ep 2 “We Formed a Team – Call Us Electric Mayo!”

Is this franchise getting any better?

Spoilers Below

Episode two kicks off with Mayonaka explaining everything about whom they are up against. Those who get taken over and controlled by the black hoodie-wearing Imps called “Kurobugs” become “Bugged Ones” which become rabid & zombie-like, attacking random people left and right. Meanwhile, those called “Hazoku” are able to create Bugged Ones on their own and much like Vampires & zombies, they directly turn people into one and making them a much higher class “Bugged One” which makes them stronger in contrast.

Mayonaka being a “Hazoku” herself means she also has that ability and she used that power to turn Tamotsu into a high-class Bugged One which explains his powers. She further explains that while there are some Hazoku species that want to peacefully co-exist with humanity, there’s also some who are monsters who want to kill or rule over them. (X-Men undertones anyone?)

Mayonaka tells him that her Hazoku clan has been responsible been for defending Akihabara for 300 years and as a side-effect of his new “Bugged One” powers, Tomatsu can no longer leave Akihabara because a magical force field surrounding the city preventing the possibility of Bugged Ones from escaping.

At first, Tomatsu starts to get annoyed by her long-ass speech and think’s it’s all bullshit but as he goes to get a sandwich, he learns the hard way when he gets cartoonishly slammed into an invisible force field (Ok I kinda chuckled at that).

Tomatsu’s sister Niwaka and Arisa also show up to check on him and then we cut to them at an abandoned warehouse with Tomatsu being more wowed by a box full of retro games than whatever Mayonaka has to say but instead relays the info-dump on Niwaka but before doing so, a dark-skinned purple-haired short science girl on a segway shows up named “Professor Tasujin Ratu” (Voiced by Funimation regular Monica Rial.)

Ratu explains to our 4 main protagonists the info dump we already know at this point to Niwaka and Arisa and it gets under Mayonaka’s skin with him asking”was it hard to actually perform the ritual on him?” (We’re going to get a lot of forced tension and unfunny sex jokes aren’t we?)

Tomatsu asks what happens if he gets his clothing ripped off because theoretically if the people he stripped were alive, “What would happen to a dead person who was resurrected like him?, but Mayonaka ends up changing the subject. (Way to dick with your audience when asking a valid question Akiba’s Trip!)

Ratu explains that for hygienic reasons, there’s a special shower designed for Tomatsu so he doesn’t have to stay in the same clothing all the time or put his life at risk and just when he opens the shower, Arisa is naked with Mayonaka knocking him in the face with a new baseball bat.

Mayonaka then says that because he’s a bugged one, he’s also instantly become a magnet to their species and will go after him any chance they’ll get and decides to establish themselves as a “vigilante squad”.

Tomatsu begrudgingly says yes to this squad-stuff but points out that he has to live here due to being unable to leave town and suggests that he should live with Mayo which embarrasses her a bit and tells Nikawa to lie to their parents saying that he has a new job and a “company apartment” as one of the benefits hoping that their parents will believe her.

Mayonaka demands to have a say in the matter but Ratu says if they move the cluttered boxes behind the stairs of the building, they can fit one more person assuring Mayonaka that he’s just a “harmless Idiot” but he’s also her responsibility since she resurrected him.

When Mayonaka orders Tomatsu around there’s a cringe-worthy yet pointless upskirt-shot expecting us to take this show seriously when she says “your work starts now!”

They then cut to them patrolling the streets at daytime and Much to Mayonaka’s annoyance, she wonders why Arisa is even with them or why she’s dressed in a fucking cosplay outfit, but points out to Mayonaka that during the fight from last episode, she purchased the toys she broke and did her best to fix them because she felt bad for the property damage she committed and then gives Arisa an apology for blindly thinking she was a bugged one due to her speed and agility of dodging her strikes.

While this scene is supposed to be sweet, it’s just another excuse to show random boob & cleavage shots of them pressing boobs against one another accompanied with goofy sound effects because the writers are cheap and think sex-jokes are comedy gold no matter how forced you make them.

Tomatsu figures out a name for their team inspired by Mayonaka’s name and his “sweet glowy-hair” but before he says what it is we get an unfunny scene of  him with a baseball bat, but then they get interrupted by the green-clad vigilantes of the town from the first episode who ask if they have anything to do with the string of violence and property damage.

But Tomatsu smooths things over saying they’re a vigilante group themselves called “Electric Mayonaise” (this is where I facepalmed the most). The team in green just wants answers but doesn’t care what name they use and they respond back saying the town is their “turf” saying that being territorial is one of the “unspoken rules of vigilantism”. They leave in annoyance and while the leader of the “green team” is smitten by Arisa, they decide to keep an eye on them.

We cut to our main three in a maid cafe with Tomatsu asking what the “Bugged Ones” are trying to accomplish? What’s their primary goal? Their fight last night caught the attention of the camera-phone crowd as their fight was captured and uploaded on Youtube under the name “Cosplayers gone wild”.

Mayonaka comes to the conclusion that they want to take over the town since their only purpose is to multiply but who’s the leader? Who’s in charge with Tomatsu pointing out how they can fight a war when they don’t know who the leader is?

When Mayonaka says they’re under-funded she assures him that he can make room for his schedule to have a part-time job given that he’s just a teen with not much to support himself with but is interrupted by a tall towering maid offering him employment to an agency.

So they go to the agency ran by a white-haired goofy woman with fingerless gloves to ask for a job and she gives them a flyer for one for a gun & military surplus store. Mayonaka reveals that she has a device to track Bugged Ones which looks sort of like a purple GameBoy for some reason detects signals from the shop and only works when a “Bugged one reveals it’s true nature” giving them reason to check it out because they figure that Tomatsu getting a job he can help them gain access.

After arriving at the surplus store, Arisa points out there’s a community of “military loving Otaku” because of particular miliary-themed programming and out of nowhere the owner, who wears a red beret, starts to go on a rampage causing everyone within the store to run only to get taken over by those imp-looking Kuro-bugs that were waiting. The signal on the device shows that he is both a leader and high class Bugged One which leaves them no choice but to fight.

As the crowd runs out, from a distance there’s a black cloaked woman in a dark hat watching from afar with some dude capturing the chaos on camera. (I’m guessing she’s obviously the bad guy).

While the team attempts to put a stop to the newly made “Bugged-Ones” they get their clothing shredded to pieces and realize that the bullets firing at them aren’t really fatal but are tearing their clothes to shreds instead except for Arisa who’s dodging the bullets and dropkicks one of them (Bullets don’t work that way!).

They decide to make a “tactical retreat” since removing their clothing has consequences and they all dramatically crash out the window when they encounter the “Green Team” from earlier and before they can get into a tense argument, Grenades drop at their general direction causing them to run the fuck away!

Mayonaka decides to tell them that the Urban Legend of the “Bugged ones” is not only real but they have to put their differences aside if they want to stop them.

Tomatsu has a plan and they re-enter the building going up against the caudre of bugged ones with Mayonaka taking down the Kurobugs while Tomatsu takes care of the Gunshop owner.

The owner almost kills Tomatsu with a gatling gun full of “disrobing rounds” and using the green Team-leader’s clothes quickly put them on and gets the leader nude and while he gives his thanks to the Green Team’s leader, it feels the need to show his/her skinny androgynous build in underwear with comedic perverse overtones.

After the purple smoke clears, Tomatsu sees that unlike the other posessed people who turn back to normal after being stripped, those who are “high-class” Bugged Ones die by evaporating into purple smoke & nothingness instead. In other words, those taken over by Impy-Kuro bugs and transformed into Bugged Ones don’t die when stripped but Bugged Ones created directly by Hazoku like Mayonaka do.

After realizing this from Mayonaka, Tomatsu realizes how short his new existence can possibly get thanks to Mayonaka, and instead of being in an existential crisis, he decides he must embrace every ounce of his new life without any regrets and heads off to try and pursue another job.

Mayonaka is just left dumbfounded that he isn’t horrified or at least sad that he could die at anytime and we then cut to a news broadcast with the yellow-jacket guy who captured the footage of the chaos from earlier and proceeds to give a false news report.

After the news broadcast is over that the Mysteriously cloaked woman who’s watching from a distance is now aware of our main protagonists and already see’s them as primary threats saying she should “play a stronger card” and ending with her red eye glowing.

Overview.

I had to carefully research this but in the videogame franchise this show is based on, stripping people won’t kill someone unless they’re an in-game boss, main villain, or a main protagonist. Since your capable of defeating the villains, you also put yourself at risk for a “game over” in the process. (In the gaming world we call this a “Risk Vs Reward” scenario.)

From what I can gather, The news guy is trying to convince the public that all these incidents are just random fights between Anime-Nerds within the town to prevent widespread panic. What’s to say other people won’t figure it out? In a generation where we can capture anything with a smartphone, Why hasn’t anyone taken pictures of these black Imps? It’s not like they’re invisible to certain people.

There’s a ridiculous running joke of them lazily re-using the same scene, Inparticular anytime someone reports to the gun-shop leader, He bitchslaps him cartoonishly, It’s happened 3 times in this fucking episode and shows how lazy the animation team can get.

And finally in response to a random shower scene that only exists to show Arisa semi-nude so Tomatsu can get struck in the face with a baseball bat by Mayonaka, what the fuck is with the double-standard violence against men? It’s not funny! And I will never understand Japan’s fascination with women beating the shit out of men and having it played for laughs! You can’t have it both ways!

Fuck this show!