English Dub Review: Kakuriyo -Bed and Breakfast for Spirits- “A Big Fight Between a Tengu Father and His Son”

Guess what happens in this episode?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Hatori is having a fight with Matsuba the elder tengu, who turns out to be Hatori’s father from way back when. The two have hated each other for an extremely long time, on account of Matsuba being a huge jerk to his late mother. As it turns out, when he was younger, Hatori stole some of the sacred tengu liquor that his father was supposed to protect and hocked it for some quick cash. Now Hatori needs that special liquor once again for the ritual to save the Southern Lands, but his pops aren’t about to give it to him.

This means, of course, that its up to Aoi and her “incredible” cooking abilities to intervene and save the day. With the help of the master, Aoi successfully makes a human dish that Hatori’s mother used to make, hoping that it will pull on Matsuda’s heartstrings and bring him to heel. They hold a dinner the next day where Hatori pleads with dear old dad for the liquor which Matsuda eventually accepts. The two make up, all is well, and life goes on. Woo.

Our Take:

Oh Kakuriyo, how you stumble about like a drunk freshman on at a frat party. So often you abstain from conflict, from tension, from all the important things that make a story, well, a story, but every now and again you show us why you like to play it safe so much; because the alternative is worse. When there are no stakes in the game, its so much easier to make a harmless, safe episode about mundane issues, but when you try and switch it up and get a little spicy with some family drama, we’re forced to endure through a cringy soap opera that makes me feel stupider for having experienced it. It’s an episode that is filled with sappy, vacuous crap, emotionally heavy-handed and ultimately pointless in its conclusion. Perhaps I should be thankful for the mix up in the usual fare from Kakuriyo, though. It stinks to high heaven, but at least isn’t the lukewarm bathwater we usually get.

Our main issue here is, as this episode’s overly descriptive title would indicate, is about a fight between Matsuba and Hatori, which gives some insight into Hitori’s past. The episode does so little to make this conflict matter, it even tells the tale of their parting through a slideshow of crayon drawings. As if this show needed more ways to trim its animation budget. The story does not even begin to get me to care about Hatori’s relationship with Matsuba, and because of that, everything after this elongated exposition is just moot. It’s not as if Hatori’s character has even been built up to demand some backstory to who he is or why Matsuba is important; they just pulled this one out of nowhere because…why not, I guess? Gotta do something to fill up that 22 minutes, right? Their hamfisted attempts at drawing sympathy from me by giving Matsuba a dead mother do nothing but highlight just how terribly written the show is. The deliveries do not help, but I don’t like to put voice actors on the spot since I don’t think even Daniel Day-Lewis could make this garbage sound meaningful.

In general, the scripting in Kakuriyo has the quality of an amateur fanfiction, and I’ve no doubt it comes from the wretched hollow that is the source material of this fantasy fulfillment garbage. I don’t think Kakuriyo will ever come anywhere close to good. This was their attempt at an emotional family story, and it just falls completely on its ass.