English Dub Review: Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond “Desperate Fight in the Macro Zone, Part 2”

Making Attack on Titan look like a Kindergarten.

Overview (Spoilers)

Leo’s wimpy friend Riel ain’t so wimpy no more. A bacterium-sized bio-terrorist has given him a treatment that makes him grow bigger and stronger every time he gets hurt. After a bunch of attempts to take him down, he ended up the size of a skyscraper. The citizens of Hellsalem’s Lot are now taking bets on who is going to win in a fight: him, or the world’s largest organism, Gigagiga Futmassif? Well, after some trigger-happy police helicopters unload on Riel, he boosts in size to be even bigger than Gigagiga, and the massive beastie runs for the hills. It’s time for our heroes to unleash a desperate plan to bring the gentile giant down. While most of the crew distracts Riel by pummeling his big toe, Sonic invades through the ear under Leo’s guidance. The mini-monkey makes his way to the brain stem just in time. The bio-terrorist was finally done with Riel not going on a rampage and was about to assume direct control of that body of his. Using technology given to them by Dr. Legato, Sonic blasts the bioterrorist and reverses the situation Riel is in. Rapidly shrinking, Riel falls into the giant hole at the edge of Hellsalem’s Lot.

Afterwards, everything seems to be back to normal. There is some discussion, however, about where Chain was during the assault. In an absolutely adorable scene, she apologizes. She and the other girls from the Werewolf Bureau went out for a party together and drank a restaurant dry. The place got shut down for a week to restock its alcohol. Zapp tries to play off that he’s angry about her not showing up, but nobody plays that game. He wasn’t in the fight either. He got beat up after attempting to mug someone and had been hitting on nurses the whole time. Leo misses Riel and wonders what became of him until he finds the little guy underfoot… Literally. After everything, Riel is now the size of a bug. He enjoys his new perspective, however, and is perfectly happy.

Our Take

This episode was a satisfying wrap up to part 1 last week. While that episode featured bits of Deldro, this one gave us a few drops of Chain. While this could have been a sad episode, it was wrapped up with a bunch of humor and heart. Even though I hadn’t had much time with Riel, I was rooting for him already and cared for his plight. The scenes of the Werewolf party gave us some much needed comic relief during the action sequences and kept things from getting too serious. One thing I liked about this plotline was how far in advance it was teased. The faceoff between MegaRiel and GigaGiga has been in the closing credits the whole time! GigaGiga has shown up in an earlier episode, and that just continues the feeling that this is a contiguous universe. It would be easy to have GG show up in just the episode where he was useful, but he’s a part of the character that is Hellsalem’s Lot. GG is like their version of Godzilla. Giant monster, initially pure destruction, later becomes their hero and fights giant enemies to save the city. I’m still left to wonder, though: how much collateral damage is being done to the city just from the two of them walking around. That much weight being slammed on the ground over and over is bound to shake a few buildings into dust.

The animation in this episode had some high points. Particularly any scene involving the flying version of the butler’s car. It was smoothly animated, and dramatically directed. I would have liked to see some more dramatic angles of MegaRiel when he was by himself, but that’s more nitpicking than anything else. Even when the show had opportunities to recycle animation, such as with the gamblers betting on Riel or GG, they chose not to. At least if they did, they did so well enough that I didn’t notice it. That’s how you can tell a high-quality anime, friends. Trina Nishimura gave us a solid, if brief, performance as Chain. Her apology scene was cute in its art style, but she’s what sold it for me. She didn’t come off as petulant or childlike. She was honestly embarrassed and felt she had done wrong. The other voice actors weren’t slacking, but she was the performance that stood out to me.