English Dub Review: Senran Kagura “Rocket Dive”

There are no rockets present in this episode.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The respective teams of each shinobi school meet to discuss the new enemy shinobi they’re to face. Sexy shenanigans ensue, and Yumi meets up with Homura. In a riverside meeting, the two of them talk about their pasts and their friends. Eventually, Yumi’s fight with Asuka comes up, but Homura tries to pick up her spirits by taking her to a hot spring.

At the shinobi hot springs, the girls all have a lovely time splashing around and getting into lewd situations. Naturally, they also try to grab each other’s boobs or, in Murakumo’s case, try to get their boob’s grabbed. Its all fun and games until a mysterious woman approaches the Renka, Hanabi, and Kufura at their temple, looking for Kagura. They try to hide her, but the stranger approaches Kagura and invites her to the shinobi tournament, which catches the young girl’s interest.

The ninja spa day soon finishes, and Asuka arrives to warn Homura not to participate in the shinobi tournament. Then, to settle their differences, the two fight, but their battle is over when Asuka breaks open the water tower and washes Homura away.

Our Take:

Can this series cool it with the “Sword and Shield” business already? These walking jiggle factories can’t seem to go two minutes without going into some digression about the importance of being “Both a sword and a shield” as a shinobi. I love overused declarations of principles as much as the next guy, but usually, they have a little more depth or interest than this. There’s not a whole lot to the idea; its basically just “Remember, sometimes you have to attack people, and sometimes you have to defend people!” This is kindergarten level, not that you should ever, ever, bring this show near kindergartners.

But here’s the thing, none of this really matters. Everything about this show, everything about this episode, is just a flimsy excuse to have half-naked (Or also quite often, fully naked) girls fight each other in extravagant outfits and wave their assets around like they’re trying to win a wet t-shirt contest. The cast is so damn big because the show wants to appeal to every preference of girl imaginable so the viewer can find their favorite and hopefully buy merchandise in the form of her cursed image. There is literally nothing to this show other than being colorful pornography. The rest of it is just marketing, a way to sell smut without it actually being labeled smut.

But it’s not all just smutty bullshit. If you can bother to pay attention to all this, there are a couple of moments of good comedy that made me chuckle once or twice. In particular, the manga that Murakumo makes with its justice-obsessed characters brought a smile to my crooked face. “We’re all justice, we’re all awesome” should absolutely go on a coffee mug somewhere. But if you’re watching this show for the laughs, then you’re absolutely in the wrong place and should rethink the life choices that have brought you to this point.

I lost the plot about six episodes in, where the meeting of the “Evil” ninjas (I can’t believe they even call themselves that) gets derailed because one of the girls has figured out how to tie knots in bondage rope and is just having a swell time squirming under the tension of her self-tied knots; while being naked, of course. To top it off, the issue is settled with a swift slap on the ass. There isn’t a whole lot more I can say about this episode than that.