English Dub Review: The Millionaire Detective – Balance:UNLIMITED “Life Shouldn’t Be Printed on Dollar Bills”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Daisuke is beaten by his father’s associate, Weinski as Haru tries to shoot but can’t due to his fear. In the middle of the fight, Daisuke spots Haru and maneuvers the fight over when Haru drops a shipping container in between them. Haru and Daisuke hide and when Haru says that they should escape, Daisuke refuses and insists on pursuing Shigemaru Kambe. Meanwhile, Suzue sends drones to the ship and after they get shot down the mini bugs fly to the ship. Daisuke and Haru make their way to the lifeboat where Suzue delivers another earring reestablishing communication to warn Daisuke about Weinski and the lackeys. Then she informs him of the possibility of his suit being disabled by the adollium his parents were researching on, and how the engine room could be powered by the same material.

Daisuke makes his way to the engine room while Haru is given the task of distracting the enemy. Haru successfully convinces the enemy that he’s dead as Daisuke messes with the engine’s cooler valve. After a tough fight with Weinski again the ship is on the verge of going under when the duo confronts Shigemaru, he escapes using HEUSC and a hoverbike. The two then drop Weinski and the other armed guards before riding on a helicopter to the laboratory.

Our Take:

This week’s episode was a good episode with action and a bit of character development for Haru and Daisuke.

We finally get to see Haru overcome his fear and finally take the shot while Daisuke fights without the use of his fancy ASV suit and works with Haru to destroy the cooler pipe. That scene worked well because in that scene there’s a montage that hammered down Haru’s actions throughout the show all the way to the first episode as heroic.  Additionally, Daisuke’s perspective shows that despite his personality he does acknowledge Haru as a hero rather than as a civil servant as previously stated by Haru. The scene also linked back to Hoshino’s words from the previous episode and shows that Daisuke does listen to others despite his aloof personality. All those little moments culminated for that moment when Haru finally pulled that trigger to shoot out the cooler of the ship which effectively derailed Shigemaru’s plan.

The animation after that where Daisuke’s ASV suit is operational and he destroys Weinski’s gadget with a kick was also a nice touch along with the music. Furthermore, the voice acting was good especially Haru’s line on catching the final boss that is Shigemaru. Suzue’s assistance during this episode was good and the fact that she was drinking boba tea while doing all of that was a nice tidbit to add to her character.

The confrontation between Daisuke, Haru, and Shigemaru was good at revealing that Shigemaru can use HEUSC to injure Daisuke. Furthermore, Daisuke surprisingly attempts to arrest his father as a detective rather than as the Kambe family heir. It’s another decision that separates Daisuke from the Kambe family as previously he stated that he doesn’t intend to succeed in the head position in the embassy bomb episode. If anything this solidifies Daisuke up as the rich family member who uses the family’s money on purpose for his own goal.

Then Shigemaru gets away without a word even when there’s a pause in between Daisuke and Shigemaru as they both escape on their respective vehicles. It’s a bit unsatisfying to watch because it’s their first confrontation and it had the potential to shed some light on Shigemaru’s actions. The lack of emotions from both of them really goes to show how they don’t see each other as family and how similar they are. In addition to that, there’s the previous scene of Shigemaru paying Weinski to “teach” his son a lesson that establishes Shigemaru’s view of his son as nothing more than a nuisance to his goal, whatever it is at this point.

Overall the episode was good with the fight scenes, a bit of humor thanks to Daisuke’s sore spot on his height, and the pay off of Haru being a hero returning to his former self. Now with only the last episode to go, this final confrontation has a bar to reach thanks to this episode.