English Dub Review: Akiba’s Trip “Did You Open Your Pyloric Canal?!

This atrocious series is near its end, so let’s do this!

Spoilers Below

This week’s episode is primarily focused on Tomatsu’s desire to have a girlfriend after discovering that his childhood friend has one. So out of sympathy, Nikawa & Arisa decide to hook both him & Mayonaka together on a “practice date”.

Despite previously showed hints of romantic interest towards him throughout the show, Mayonaka is quite hateful yet awkward towards him at first but eventually loosens up when they go on a series of restaurants all over town which takes up a good chunk of the episode until Mayonaka vaguely mentions her past living in a dark period of Japan when food became scarce until they encounter the villain of the week who’s gimmick is he’s a competitive eater nicknamed ” Black Hole Kurota”.

Disgusted by Kurota’s uncalled for behavior, Mayonaka decides to challenge Kurota to a “food duel” in an effort to stop him which takes up an even larger half of the episode. Mayonaka eventually wins, however, Kurota is not only a poor loser but was a “bugged one” the whole time and like every simple-minded villain of the week before him, he reveals his evil scheme and pledges allegiance to an unknown individual named “Metrotica”.

Kurota attempts to suck everything up using some sort of “wind tunnel” technique until Tomatsu thinks up a plan with Professor Raitu to stop him which involves freezing him to death and he’s defeated.

Mayonaka thinks their supposed date got ruined but Tomatsu isn’t bothered since he feels like they had an adventure. As they walk towards a sweets shop, It forebodingly ends when a tall glowy pink-haired lady in a school girl outfit holds a katana while wearing a black mask quietly watching on top of a building from a distance.

The credits end with a J-Pop/rock song by an idol-duo who call themselves “Petite Milady”.

Our Take

The show at this point has become 80% filler and they could’ve done so much more because one episode where the two leads have chemistry isn’t going to instantly make us give a shit. I know the writers want us to ship Mayonaka and Tomatsu as a couple out of hideous contrivance but if they had more episodes where she wasn’t always a mean-spirited cunt towards him, we’d be more engaged as an audience.