English Dub Review: The Gymnastics Samurai “Samurai Father and Daughter”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

With Leo still missing for some time, the clock ticks down towards Rei’s birthday, but it turns out that Jotaro won’t be there either because of a special training camp. This just further hits Rei’s ability to keep calm, but when Big Bird, their giant weird bird pet, eats chicken and then freaks out, she has to bike him all the way to the vet herself. Jotaro freaks out when he isn’t able to find her, so his mom and one of the bar employees use the roving gangs of ganguro kids (who were briefly established in one scene as a possible threat) to help find her. Jotaro and Rei reconcile and Leo shows up again, uniting the family.

OUR TAKE

We’re over half way through this series and it feels like we’ve barely done anything or gone anywhere. The characters continue to stand out JUST ENOUGH to not be bad, but the standard for that is heightening with each episode. Episodes that focus on Rei, with her complicated emotional state regarding both her father postponing his retirement and her back and forth feelings for Leo, definitely tend to feel more substantive, though not really by much. I figured when they introduced her birthday as a date that the family always drops things for that something would happen on that date, but the tension doesn’t really end up adding up to much. I understand it can hurt when traditions like that get changed suddenly, especially for a family like theirs that is still hurting from the loss of Rei’s mom (who apparently had a bit of a slapping streak in her based on these flashbacks), but it feels like we may have used that up either too soon or too simply. It does kinda look like stuff is also going on with one of the kids who kinda sorta bullied her, since he’s been showing up occasionally lately with a bit of a differing attitude, but I don’t know if there’s time left to fully explore that.

Also, Leo’s back! Hooray! But also, was he ever really gone? That whole thing last episode with him meeting those sunglasses people seemed like it was going to be more dire than it ended up being if he can just show back up the very next episode after leaving as if nothing happened. We’re probably due for an explanation on that next episode if not the one right after, but I guess I’m finding it hard to care about it based on how it’s presented. Maybe if this show were either a bit longer or even just the slightest bit more interesting about Leo, I’d be more compelled to care. Right now, his character consists of simply being really into the ninja act and being Rei’s friend, though his connection to Jotaro seems pretty ostensible, which is odd considering he and the blue guy with the head band (who I can’t be bothered to look up right now) are featured mainly in the OP. But hey, good on Funimation for getting on this a week later instead of nearly a month like normal. We might end up finishing this whole series before March!