English Dub Review: Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits- “There’s a Secret in the Basement at Tenjin-ya”

Good golly gosh, what could it be?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Things pick up from last week after Aoi served the first of two guests who recently arrived, a pair of spirits who work at the inn rivaling Tenjin-Ya. This time, Aoi tries to be palsy walsies with the other spirit by serving him some food. The two get along pretty well, but Akatsuki isn’t having that; he gets all huffed and puffed about Aoi serving the enemy and chases the spirit out of Moonflower.

Later, three kids have gone missing at Tenjin-Ya; Akatsuki and Aoi go to look for them, and find that they’ve just snuck into the basement to fool around and be kids and whatnot. While searching the basement and chasing the kids down, they come across an eccentric scientist who’s just…hanging out, doing science, I suppose. Aoi eventually comes across a room full of old photos where she sees a picture of her grandfather when he was young.

The kids, who were looking for a lost hair ornament, almost fall off a cliff in hilarious fashion. Aoi dives in to save the girl who slipped in, but Akatsuki grabs them with spider web powers before they hit the ground. The day is saved and everyone celebrates in the garden with some tasty shaved ice. Woot.

Our Take:

Well, here we are again, staring into the creative void that is Kakuriyo, an anime whose continued existence baffles me from both an artistic perspective and a financial one. Harem anime is a stable investment, I suppose, though for the life of me I can’t imagine why anyone would willingly subject themselves to this when there are so many other good “Boy harem” out there; and they’re a lot less rapey too.

Alright, bitterness at the status quo of anime aside, this episode is really quite bad. Its got a little bit of goodness in it; fleeting goodness like a glimpse of bigfoot in the woods. This episode has the good grace to give us an actual conflict, a concept which comes and goes with a remarkable fluidity in this series. Missing children is a decent way to go to try and raise the stakes, but Aoi’s relentless complacency and lack of expression would convince you that this is just business as usual. Of course, it doesn’t really amount to anything, but the introduction of the new character, “Dr. Saraku.” He’s mildly amusing, but I’ve definitely seen better scientist characters.

If you’ve been watching this series (Or, god forbid, reading my reviews on a regular basis) you may have noticed that each episode of Kakuriyo tends to follow a very similar formula. Some new conflict arises, we introduce a new character involved in this conflict, and Aoi usually solves whatever problem we have with food. And, of course, there’s plenty of lengthy explanations about shaved ice or fried rice or whatever tropey food the episode decides to examine.

And this animation, oh my god this animation. We’ve descended to a new level of production failure, here. In addition to the montages of stills replacing actual animation, we’ve now got sequences where we “Cut to black” in the place of actual motion, then reconvene after the act has taken place. I guess the animators didn’t think I’d notice when Akatsuki delivers a punch without ever swinging his arm.

This episode cannot even begin to make me care. It wants to be the happy slice-of-life but it has failed to make me care about any of these characters beyond their plywood personalities.  It’s not funny, it’s not interesting, it’s not good in the slightest. Go watch “Fruit’s Basket” or “Ouran High School Host Club” or something; you’ll have a much better time.