English Dub Review: Kakuriyo -Bed and Breakfast for Spirits- “A Fireworks Even With Ayakashi.”

The ritual begins.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Aoi pleads with Ranmaru to let her cook the dishes of Ocean Treasure, a request he allows, since Aoi has proven herself capable in his eyes. That evening, the night of the ritual arrives, but something is amiss. Orio-ya is flooded with customers and unable to deal with them and the ritual at the same time. Things seem dire, until Aoi and the others spot the airship fleet of Tenjin-ya in the skies. The Master and the other prominent members of the inn leap down to greet Aoi, and soon the Master asks Ranmaru to return Aoi home. Aoi protests, though, and asks if she can help with the ritual. The Master accepts, and even offers his inn’s services in joining together with Orio-ya, just for this one night. Ranmaru gratefully accepts, and everyone decides to work together.

Aoi and the others head out to perform the ritual, and Ginji presents Aoi with a gift from the Master: a special outfit designed to look like the one she wore at Moonflower. The gift fills Aoi with confidence, and soon she is ready to give the ritual her all.

Ginji explains the ritual and how it works to Aoi and the crane twins. Most of the instructions are mundane, but Ginji makes sure to tell them not to gaze upon the umi-bouzu, lest great misfortune befall them. Heeding Ginji’s warning, Aoi and the crane twins proceed to prepare the food for the ritual, smiling all the way.

Soon, the umi-bouzu arrives, and the ritual begins. Ranmaru and Giniji do their dances to appease the umi-bouzu, and Aoi brings out the appetizers to the creature along with a menu, allowing the spirit to choose which offer he’d like to eat. The umi-bouzu orders the stir-fried shrimp, which Aoi and the twins dutifully make. Unfortunately, disaster strikes and Chibi falls out of Aoi’s sleeve and scurries under the screen to where the umi-bouzu is. Aoi, trying to help save the ritual, opens the screen and gazes upon the umi-bouzu, before screaming at the sight of the creature.

Our Take:

Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits is nearing its conclusion, finally getting to the southern lands ritual that’s been hyped up for the last ten episodes. Of course, its fitting for this show that the climax of the series would be just another guest for Aoi to serve, but it still strikes me as a little bit too wholesome for a series climax. Still, the episode brings its characters together for one last hurrah, though it doesn’t do much to add to the story. In fact, this episode doesn’t do much of anything at all. Everything feels like a half-measure, with the episode neglecting to show off the parts of the episode that might be fun to watch, and opting for more drawn-out dialogue sequences instead.

There’s a lot in this episode that should be fun,but just isn’t. Seeing the much-beloved figures from Tenjin-ya show up at the last minute should be a great time where we get to see everyone work together to please the hordes of customers banging on their doors. However, that doesn’t amount to anything more than a quick conversation before these characters leave for the rest of the episode. I’m not a fan of this show, but if I was, I would no doubt be disappointed. “Show, don’t tell” is the most basic aspect of visual storytelling, and Kakuriyo’s storytelling is just lazy, because it hardly shows us anything at all.

It’s amazing to me that what is supposed to the story’s final cookoff with Aoi is basically the same as the others. One would expect something to spice things up, some kind of conflict or trouble that forces Aoi to rise above her level of cooking, but nothing of the sort takes place. All we get is, you guessed it, another cooking montage where, you guessed again, she makes some of the most delicious food imaginable. Not to mention, the only issue that arises is entirely not her fault, just like every other challenge she faces. Perfect Aoi can never fail. “Mary Sue”, anyone?

This is a lackluster attempt at finishing the story. The episode wastes so much time on boring, feckless dialogue just so it can pad things out and leave us on a cheap cliffhanger for the next episode. Story is nothing without conflict, and anime is nothing without visuals, two essential elements Kakuriyo just outright refuses to engage with.