English Dub Review: Kemono Jihen “Intrustion”

Overview:

Kabane gets pulled into the room Inugami told him to avoid. Inside is a vampire named Mihai who apparently has an online gaming addiction. While arm-wrestling Kabane broke Mihai’s wrist so he cannot play games and instead decides to help out around the office. Only he accepts a job that Inugami did not plan on accepting.

Our Take:

This is one of the more interesting takes on a vampire I have got to see. What’s interesting as well is that it kind of makes sense that a vampire would eventually become bored. Mihai has become so bored so often that he has all sorts of degrees and doctorates. He is a certifiable genius, so it only stands to reason that eventually that would bore him too. So what better to break up the monotony than gaming?

I can’t wait to see more of his interactions with the rest of the group as well. Kabane especially is too meek for his own good. He becomes Mihai’s “slave” though Mihai often corrects to “assistant”. It seems Kabane is pretty strong when Mihai challenges everyone to an arm-wrestling contest. Everyone loses rather handily, even Kabane, but Kabane was able to break Mihai’s wrist which is a huge deal.

Mihai is a great character to introduce at just about the halfway point because he brings some fun chaos to the table. What I mean by that is Shiki learns an invisibility ability and sneaks into this office for a case. There happens to be fly kemono there who suck out the worker’s brains. Shiki wisely decides it would be best to do a tactical retreat and regroup. Mihai being the bored vampire he is however does not agree with that and creates noise to get Shiki caught. Kind of a dick move but made the infiltration interesting and created conflict.

I also want to touch on Kon and Kabane, their relationship is precious. I highly doubt it will ever become romantic but man I just want more of them together. They are just too cute together, Kon is even waiting for him to come back from his case. Though… that might end up being a while.

A good episode, not usually a fan of cliffhangers but there was a lot to unpack in this one. Introducing a new character, showing relationships grow between different characters, and setting up the current arc. Which seems to me to be a Shiki-focused one. We’ll see what the next episode brings.