English Dub Review: Akiba’s Trip Episode “Akihabara Grand Tournament”

Arisa knows Kung-Fu… and Pro-Wrestling apparently.

Spoilers Below

The episode begins with all four of our protagonists casually walking in the street with Tomatsu remarking that they’re seeking out a rice cooker due to Tomatsu & Nikawa’s mother sending them a large amount of Rice but no way to cook said rice with Mayonaka being the only one who’s excited.

They begin to argue over the fact none of them are capable of cooking with Nikawa pointed out that Tomatsu’s process of making the curry was time-consuming but thankfully Arisa says she can make curry.They begin to notice a man in a kung-fu outfit who’s balancing an exaggerated stack of boxes on his head with a scar on his cheek and is accompanied by a purple-haired chick wearing an outfit that’s a lighter shade of purple.

Mayonaka wonders if any of that is possible and Arisa notices that the individual who’s balancing an unrealistically tall stack of boxes on his head is none other than her “Sifu” named Ma’-ster. (Note: To make this less confusing due to his real name being a play on words for “Master” I’m calling him “Sifu” because that’s the name of a Chinese Martial arts teacher).

Arisa is puzzled why her own Sifu wouldn’t bother to notice his own student but she clearly knows it’s him during her time in China. And this is where we discover another side of the Cosplaying Airhead when she delves into her backstory. Apparently long before the events of this show, Arisa was a child-prodigy from Finland who graduated college in America at the age of 10 and traveled the world to “expand her views” in order to find out what she’s good at and during the course of her travels, Learned multiple skills from hunting in Africa to making curry in India until eventually meeting her Sifu in china who trained her for about a year . Afterward, she went to Japan to “Master the way of the Otaku”.

Really Arisa?? Of all the things you could’ve legitimately studied in Japan You go there to be an Otaku? At least this explains why she goes through more ridiculously colorful outfits than Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. Nikawa asks why would her Sifu be here but not even Arisa knows other than he once mentioned to her that wanted to take his family to Japan someday but after that info-dump Arisa decides to resume their quest to get a rice cooker.

As they go an electronics place, they find all the rice cookers shockingly sold out including the display models which leaves Mayonaka skeptical and Arisa begins to notice the towering boxes again indicating that it’s her Sifu which according to the store clerk is supposedly the individual who purchased all of them… I’m pretty sure balancing heavy boxes on your head isn’t going to help you through an exit no matter how superhuman your skills fucking are!

As they try to confront him, the lady in purple proclaims that she’s in charge of “managing this man” and that her name is “Diva Risa McWhite”. Arisa quickly recognizes the name and it turns out Mcwhite is a fight promoter in various martial arts circles who monopolizes various fighting tournaments, basically, she’s like Vince Mcmahon but with a cleavage.

McWhite proclaims that Arisa’s Sifu is going to help her conquer Akiba with the most ridiculous plan ever in buying up all the appliances in Akihabara and reselling them at higher prices to dick with the retail market which in a nutshell is Gamestop’s business model but on a grander scale.

Quickly our protagonists realize McWhite is a “Bugged One” who has Arisa’s Sifu under her control and Mayonaka points out that her so-called “evil plan” to take over the city by buying up every rice cooker in town is incredibly fucking stupid! Arisa’s words don’t get through to her Sifu as he makes quick work kicking their asses by knocking Mayonaka into a washing machine and Tamotsu getting his head stuck in a microwave.

Arisa recovers and decides to try and get through to her brainwashed Sifu but is interrupted by the store clerk who’s head is cartoonishly shaped like a pencil eraser and tells everyone that’s fighting within the store that that they’ll be arrested if they take this further so they take it outside and McWhite decides to start a Tournament to settle this. We then cut to a wrestling ring that looks very WWE-esque with the giant circle-headed Kage and the newscaster who’s secretly working for the black cloaked lady as commentators.

The scenery takes place in the middle of the Akiba town but it manages to get most of the wrestling scenery & tropes spot-on, right down to the pyrotechnics and overly dramatic entrances with many of them wearing elaborate pro-wrestling-inspired outfits. There’s even an audience row for the Kurobug Imps on the opposite side cheering on Arisa’s Sifu who’s name is apparently revealed to be “Shi-Show” in the text Intro who’s wrestling attire looks like a cross between Sting and The Hardy Boyz.

McWhite proclaims her quest to take over the town and proceeds to call out the “Green Brigade” from episode 2 for their vigilantism but gets interrupted by Arisa making an entrance in what looks like an outfit with the color scheme of Rainbow Mika of Street Fighter.

Arisa gets in the ring she tries her best to get through to him but her pleas end up falling on deaf ears when she’s knocked from behind by McWhite with a folded chair and it’s revealed in a shocking twist that the Sifu’s family are held hostage and subjected into forced labor by McWhite’s Imps to grow lettuce.

There are some random scenes that don’t explain it but out of nowhere a ladder appears in the middle of the ring and Shi-Show proceeds to climb up it after throwing Arisa out and after elbow-dropping her ass, the audience hilariously screams “Holy Shit”  Shi-Show puts Arisa back to resume fighting but now Arisa is put into a situation where she can’t fight back due to Nikawa & Mayonaka being held hostage and out of nowhere the jumbo-tron proceeds to gratuitously show her taint as she’s in a submission hold which only makes me cringe at how forced this seems.

While Arisa is at a disadvantage, Tomatsu drives to the rescue in a 4-wheeler running over the Imps who are pretty damn weak against being hit by a vehicle apparently and saves the two which helps raise Arisa’s spirits enough to quickly defeat her Sifu who turns against McWhite when she forces him to unfairly use a one-handed Chinese sword in battle and he Bitch-slaps her with sword.

And then her Sifu actually talks for once telling her that his “wushu is not for doing such dastardly deeds” which is followed by a wrestling slam into a table and for the sake of honor, decides to finish his match with Arisa on more fair terms that ends with Arisa not only kicking his ass, but getting him nude down to hs speedo’s to break free of the mind control and Arisa finally wins the match but they still have McWhite to deal with.

Tomatsu jumps in and they both finally defeat her with Arisa’s Sifu apologizes afterwards for not being able to control his actions and thanks her for saving his family while the episode ends with Tomatsu proclaiming that his Vigilante group “Electric Mayonaise” will continue to defend the peace of Akiba with the wrestling audience cheering on their team name by screaming “E-L-M”.

The credits theme is another different song, this one being from 4-girl idol group called milky holmes which has the typical light-hearted j-pop sound you’d expect this show to offer.

Overview.

Whether we wanted to or not, we’ve all watched Pro-Wrestling at some point in our lives and as someone who also watched in my younger years in the 80’s, They got a few things right by actually nailing a bunch of the pro wrestling chants & cliche’s in this episode. They even went as far as to add destructive objects such as an announce table, steel chairs, ladders, tables, and kendo sticks as the weapons.

Frankly, we don’t learn a lot here besides the fact that Arisa isn’t a complete blonde airhead stereotype after all, but at least they attempted to lend her a little more context as a character, and now we have an explanation for why she can hold her own in physical combat without having any special powers. I often cracked jokes about her knowing “Kung-Fu” not knowing at the time that was her legit fighting style the whole time.

Clearly, the biggest plot-holes consist of the following:

1. Why the fuck did they have to take his family hostage if he was already a bugged one?

2. It seems the subtlety & consistency of this anime at this point is pretty damn nonexistent. Bugged Ones really don’t care for disguising themselves too much despite being depicted as a “myth” in previous episodes, the Imps were on fucking camera and in the audience, you’d think they’d try to attempt to attack normal people if given the chance!

3. Where the fuck is the Cloaked woman from episode 2? we’re now 8 episodes in and Abso-fucking -lutely nothing!

And the biggest one, 4. How the fuck does purchasing Rice Cookers and reselling them equate to world domination??

While the episode excelled in dialing back the female on male violence for laughs and attempted to develop Arisa as a character, The show still doesn’t do anything deep, nor do we know if the main villain will ever make her presence known to the protagonists.