English Dub Review: Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens “Leadoff Hitter”

Enokida’s got a troubled past. Who would’ve guessed?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Our weekly sojourn into the city of Hakata begins with the introduction of a new character: a rich politician and a fancy butler in his service. The politician is finding himself blackmailed by a hacker who’s taken over his PC. Something must be done, and his butler informs him that he has “contacts” who can help him deal with this. Cut to resident hackerman, Enokida, getting the business from a detective working for the counter cybercrime unit of the police department. Enokida’s been a bad boy, so sometimes to get the heat off his back he needs to deal with some cyber-terrorism for the cops; not a bad deal if you ask me. But just as he’s in the clear, he gets a call from the old man at the ramen stand, letting him know that Saitoh got arrested for blackmailing politicians. Naturally, it falls to Enokida to get involved.

Meanwhile, at the surgery clinic, Banba and Ling take a job from Doctor Saeki, who’s been getting blackmailed into disposing of bodies from an unknown agent. He theorizes that its just one person, or perhaps a group of people. Banba and Ling take the job, but they know it’ll be a real pain in the bum to figure out who all these dead bodies were.

Cut to a park bench where a mysterious man in a suit approaches another mysterious man about a “job”, to take care of a blackmailing hacker known as “Macro Hard.” The recipient of this job is the member of some kind of clandestine organization, and apparently, he throws his lot in with psychopaths. Later, we see the man, Chegaru, enter a PC repair store, as he enters the back room and the shopkeeper, Siva, puts up a “closed” sign on the front door, we see this is really just a front for something more sinister. In the back is a man, Irasawa, with a devilish grin, watching a video of him beating a man to death, and soon they’re joined by Siva. Apparently, Siva is a skilled hacker and has been hijacking Saitoh’s computer to blackmail politicians for fun. That’s all well and good, but Chegaru says they’ve got bigger fish to fry: there’s a hacker with Intel on the “organization”, and he needs to go down.

Poor Saitoh tells his tale of woe to Banba and Ling, while Jose consults with Enokida about how he got Saitoh off by explaining the situation to the cops. Enokida’s family comes up in conversation, and it appears that Enokida’s relationship with them is less than amicable. But the past has its way of rearing its head. The butler from earlier meets with Banba and Ling looking for none other than Enokida. At the worst moment, Enokida steps in to hear the delighted cry of the butler proclaiming him as his “young master.” Enokida tries to run, but soon the butler, who goes by Yagi, has Enokida in his grasp. Yagi offers Ling and Banba his thanks for looking after Enokida, and the two go off to do their own thing. But Banba forgot to get Enokida to run the prints on the dead bodies they’re investigating, and its not long before they’re sent word of another body showing up at the clinic.

Chegaru, meanwhile, reports to Siva with the news that Irasawa has taken care of Macro Hard, and asks Siva if he found any good intel on Macro Hard’s computer. It’s a juicy find, with files and files of blackmail to be used on unsuspecting politicians and famous people. And who should Siva track down through this information than our boy Enokida, who goes by “Black Leg” as his pseudonym? It’s clear they’ve got their sights set on him.

Enokida and Yagi take some time to speak about Enokida’s past. Many years ago, Enokida’s dad, the politician from earlier, ordered Yagi to kill him because of his spiteful hacking, which was ruining the image of his father. But Yagi’s better judgment won the day, and instead of killing him all those years ago, he gave Enokida a plane ticket and told him to run while he still can. Enokida’s still traumatized from the experience, but Yagi insists that he’s come here simply for a job, as a client, and nothing more. Reluctantly, Enokida takes the job to find the hacker who’s blackmailing his father. It seems Siva and Chegaru have figured out Enokida’s past as well, and are planning to use that info against him. Later, Banba and Ling follow the lead of their new corpse to an apartment, only to find Enokida arriving there as well. This is the residence of “Macro Hard”, the one who was blackmailing Enokida’s father, and the latest victim sent to Banba and Ling. They find a camera hidden in a doll, and examine the footage to see Chegaru and Irasawa in disguise, kidnapping Macro Hard from his apartment.

After reporting a job well done to his boss, Chegaru gets his next job: taking down Black Leg. It occurs to them that the best way to take out a hacker is to cut him off from the internet, his source of power. Everything then falls into place at once. Enokida gets a call from his police contact that the hacking organization “M3” has him on a hit list, as Banba and Ling see that a 5 million yen bounty has been placed on Enokida’s head. Just as Enokida is about to get his goose cooked by a random bounty hunter, Banba comes and saves him, and the two drive off in his car. Enokida tries to get his bounty off the internet but falls into the trap of M3, who installed a virus in the website to cut off Enokida’s internet access. Enokida’s realizes what’s happened, and tells Banba he’s getting out here and rushes off to parts unknown.

Our Take:

This has certainly been one of the more juicy episodes of Hakata Tonokotsu Ramens thus far. Enokida’s story is fairly interesting, but it’s unfortunate that this show can’t find another way to tell his story than through simple exposition and flashbacks. It was an episode dense with twists and turns, but one that became a little hard to follow with all the monologuing about computer hacking and secret organizations. Overall, not bad, but not particularly good. Perhaps the conclusion of this arc will yield to something more interesting.