English Dub Review: Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens “Irregular”

“Irregular” is a very good way to describe this show.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Picking up from last week, Saitou has been captured by a group called the “Avengers”, people for hire who specialize in torture and revenge. Saitou had been mistakenly taken by these revenge makers in their attempt to take care of the same guy Saitou had been hired to kill in last week’s episode. With his life on the line, he quickly explains this to the Avengers, who see from his business card that he words for Murder Inc. As for the real guy? Well, he’s been taken care of by another group, with the mysterious man in the eyepatch at the head, who’s also been hired to take him out. A couple of hitmen have made his death look like an accidental DUI, with the help of liberal amounts of gunpowder, of course.

Back at the detective agency, Banba is something of a hostage, being that his captor/protector won’t let him leave the house due to the danger of him being targeted by a hitman. To get the cross-dressing hitman out of the house, he insists that he go get him some of his favorite “spicy pollock roe.” While he’s out, Banba meets up with his hacker friend, Enokida, to figure out some info on the guy. His name is Ling Xiaming, and it turns out Enokida had actually already been hired to figure out who he was so the Avengers could punch him in the face as payback for his prior misdoings in the last episode. Enokida gives Banba Ling’s wallet, and our man returns back home, returning the wallet like the honest guy he is.

Ling’s employers from the last episode haven’t forgotten about Ling, and they’re looking to exact their own revenge, using their human trafficking connections and a captive girl in a suitcase, but to what end? Meanwhile, Ling and Banba share in some ramen together and have a fond moment over the hot soup. The machinations of the hitman group continue, as we see the girl from earlier bound at the mercy of one of their hitman, as he says they’re “Going to play.” Creepy. Saitou in the meantime receives word from his employer that he’s received payment for the killing of his target from earlier, which of course he didn’t actually do. But when he sees the extravagant amount of money he received for supposedly doing the job, he goes on a sick night out, drinking, eating, and spending time with beautiful women.

Banba and Ling are chilling out, watching baseball, when Banba starts asking Ling difficult questions. He reveals what he knows, that Ling is in debt, and that he works for an organization called the “Kakiyo”, a Chinese mafia group specializing in human trafficking. Ling identifies from a picture Banba has the identity of their leader, and Banba offers to pay Ling 5 million yen debt off in exchange for his information. Saitou, meanwhile, wakes up naked in bed with a girl he doesn’t remember, and he flips her sleeping body over to reveal she’s actually been murdered, naturally pinning him as the culprit. Later, as we see Ling walking home, he calls his former bosses to tell them he’s got their money and that he doesn’t owe them jack anymore. They smugly reply that he hasn’t seen the news today. Ling looks up to see the news on a TV nearby and sees the face of the girl that’s been murdered, one “Lin Qiaomei”, his sister. Ling is livid, and with gritted teeth, he tells them that he will kill them and take his revenge for what they’ve done.

Our Take:

So we’re two episodes in and while there are parts of this anime that I enjoy, it really has trouble with establishing its characters and its world. The first episode did very little in explaining who all these people are and why I should care about them, and this episode is also scattered in the same way. While the death of Ling’s sister should be a big twist, its impact is nullified because I haven’t really had the time to get a feel for who Ling is and why his sister is important to him, so the twisted sort of falls flat. It’s not bad, but it’s confusing and lukewarm, which is not a good sign for an anime this early on.