English Dub Review: Mission: Yozakura Family “A Drug Called Tanpopo”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Taiyo investigates a train that may be a supply line for Tanpopo and ends up coming face to face with Makoto, Momo, and a woman named Shirai.

OUR TAKE

We are kicking off the final third of the season by getting right back into the action with Tanpopo, which includes a new character, Shirai, who seems to be the most dangerous Hazakura subject yet. And with her introduction, we learn some new details about the Hazakura drug: even with total compatibility, a user will only have ten years left to live at most AND it looks like it can give those people specific gimmicky powers. Now, the former detail probably doesn’t seem super relevant on its own since I doubt we’ll be timing many, if any, of these sub-villains down to their exact ten years (unless there’s a timeskip or something that jumps us ahead). But the latter is notable to me because it means we’re at another stage that many Shonen get to after a certain point. Bleach did this with the Hollows once we started seeing them show up in human like Arrancar bodies and when it needed them to no longer be a horde time villain mob and start having unique personalities. And now here, we have moved beyond the need for typical or even generally monstrous spy minions. In order to keep up with everyone in the Yozakura family, we’re probably gonna see Tanpopo start bringing out more minions with a specific gimmick and personality trait.

In the case of Shirai, and possibly with more to come, there is a tinge of tragedy to her situation. She was apparently very sickly and the Hazakura drug saved her life…in a sense, by giving her a newly improved body that only has ten years left to live. Will EVERY new Tanpopo goon have this tragic of a backstory? I’m guessing probably not, as even if that may tie them together with a common theme, it may get repetitive rather quickly. We’ve still got eight more episodes which gives us plenty of time to see some variety in their lineup, though let’s also not forget that this was basically a Taiyo only episode, showing how he has truly adapted to his new abilities not just in fighting but also being aware of his surroundings, which is how he was able to sniff out that Makoto and Momo were on the train at all. And it looks like the fight will continue on into next week, so we’ll see how that concludes then! Overall, glad to see things continue to escalate, which should make for a hopefully satisfying finale in a few weeks.