English Dub Review: Rumble Garanndoll “The (Hilarious) Akiba Apocalypse Revelation!”

Overview

After a series of failures, Akatsuki decides to infiltrate Akihabara to truly understand the heart of his enemy. At the same time, Arahabaki begins the next stage of their plans in hopes to regain all that is confiscated in the former exhibition hall.

Our Take

Aside from the running marathon scene and a series of fuck-ups on the True Army’s end, the enemy forces decide to take a different approach which leads to an interesting scene at the ramen shop that was easily one of the best parts of this episode. But during the course of the proceedings, Kudo and Akatsuki, even with the Akiba Apocalypse event that happened and separated families. That pretty much confirmed and the timeline synchronized with Balzac’s story about his mech being out of control. Plus, the Rin and Hayate scenes were wholesome even if much of the humor was mostly Rin trying to keep Hayate away from the more perverted aspects of Otaku culture.

Consistently, I still don’t understand Munakata’s role in this story other than to pressure Kudo into charming the girls. He is such a onedimensional asshole that it hurts all aspects of the show. At first, I thought he was just one of those running gag characters I hated, but after this episode, I think he is supposed to be an indirect antagonist character. I don’t think he’s the upper-tier final boss our heroes are meant to be up against, but overcoming him and everything he represents is definitely going to be the climax of Kudo’s Hosomichi’s character arc.


While it was nice to see the two sides try to understand each other as people without knowing each other’s identity, It makes you wonder if any of them would all end up becoming friends if their circumstances were different. Because whether some people would admit it or not, otaku culture is capable of positive fandom and bringing people together. But sadly, it looks like their ideals might also be too strong to ignore or put aside when push comes to shove. But with this big cliffhanger, how will Kudo and the resistance get out of this one??