English Dub Review: The Ones Within “ISOLATED SOUL”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

It’s time for the next challenge, and Mr. Paka has a weird one in mind. He leads everyone to a series of cryogenic-like chambers where they all lie down. Half of them turn into toddlers and the other half have to take care of them and nurture them until they blossom. (Literally, from plants that grow out of their heads!)

All of the kids sprout pretty quickly except for Makino. He’s got some repressed trauma from growing up in a house with parents who fought all the time, and it takes a little while for him to move past it thanks to some helpful words of encouragement from Aki.

Our Take:

The ninth game didn’t end up being as fresh or unique as I thought it would, but it was still a pretty good episode, due in large part to the humor and character dynamics on display between the team members. We start off with Paka coming in to announce to everyone that they’re officially halfway there (to freedom?). They’ve reached 50 million views, which is a lot of people watching their antics.

If you have to watch hours and hours from the same group of livestreamers, at least this is a good group to pick. All the characters were in fine form in this week’s episode. Akatsuki especially; I noticed a lot more jokes coming from him. I really like how he’s very sweet and naive at times, but still allowed to say things like “if we fall, we die!” while giving Maki a tour on Pandarou. His sense of humor is wickedly dark at times, which is funny to see. (I love how happy he is to get locked in the cryogenic chamber.) Karin really ended up being good with the kids, as did Zakuro. The scene where he asks Maki if he can call him by his real name is adorably sweet.

The entire premise of the conflict surrounding Maki was kind of a two way street for me. I was thinking that Kaikoku might take more of the spotlight, and somehow let it slip that Zakuro’s sister is still alive beneath their feet. Given that he’s a kid, it would make sense that he lets this info slide out. But instead, we get a healthy dose of Maki’s inner struggle. Which…. I don’t know. A lot of kids have parents who argue, and Maki’s never seemed overly aggressive or anything in the simple silhouetted flashbacks we’re shown. Also, what’s with his weird crush on his babysitter? I guess it just never felt very traumatic to me. I think learning more about Maki and maybe why he’s the way he is could’ve been a good idea, but it wasn’t executed the most elegantly.

This week’s dub had some great lines, especially because the humor was on point this time around. “Relax Mr. Paka, I’m over it already.” Akatsuki forgives and forgets real quick. I’m still not convinced he and Paka aren’t in on something together. “This is so many kinds of messed up.” I’m with Zakuro, it’s a messed up kind of challenge. Akatsuki’s joy over the child meal he gets is great: “It comes with a toy,” Akatsuki gushes. “And I’m such a sucker for collecting things.” His summation of the other’s struggles to win over the children is nice, too: “Karin’s cranky all the time, and Anya only smiles when he’s insulting somebody.” Even Zakuro gets in on the jokes: “To think you were this cute as a kid,” Zakuro says to toddler Kaikoku. “I wonder where it all went wrong.” 

ISOLATED SOUL is an okay episode on its own, but I’m not sure about its place here. There was some solid humor and the setup was fine, but it just didn’t really feel like an episode that had to go here, near the end of the season. And the brushing over of Maki’s troubles didn’t help the feeling that it should’ve been placed earlier on in the run of episodes. Even if this week’s episode didn’t bring much drama, it seems like Paka is ready to rumble from the closing scene.