English Dub Review: ēlDLIVE “Capture That Face″

Good Morning, Space Police! I love the smell of Chuuta in the morning?

Spoilers Below

So, a bit of a hook today: we see a guy, not all that attractive. What’s his problem? All these people that look exactly like him. Street vendors, businessmen, children, even women. He gets mistaken for someone else and taken to a strange cafe for some sort of mixer. And nothing for him will ever be the same…

Anyways, back at headquarters, Misuzu is in the sick bay with Professor Isaac and Dr. Love. Her sudden reaction to Chuuta’s SPH has them worried. Chuuta didn’t affect her like this before his upgrade. Now, she can’t be around him without nose plugs or it’ll feel like her head will split in half! Dr. Love has a solution. He hands her an SPH blocking hair clip shaped like a crescent moon. It will block out Chuuta’s ambient SPH, which should end the problem. However, it creates a new problem: It looks childish. She meets up with the other female agents in the ladies room, where Veronica taunts her for the clip. Ninotchka says that Misuzu’s lucky she can afford to do anything with her hair. Ninothcka’s SPH form leaves so little to the imagination, she has to grow her hair out long just to cover more up. Veronica reminds her that Chuuta had gotten enough of a look at Ninotchka’s SPH from the other day, then leaves the two frustrated and embarrassed agents to fume.

What’s the big to do at the station today? Well, apparently, there’s been a rash of crimes all committed by the same guy. Baby napping, theft, groping old alien ladies? Is there nothing our master criminal won’t do? Composite sketches come up with results that look eerily similar to the dude from the episode prologue. Using facial recognition, the agents search for our culpri-i-iiiits? There are apparently hundreds of people that look exactly like him! The lack of SPH at the scene cinches the problem. The culprit is a Demian. They aren’t capable of assuming human-like form, and have to have temporary surgery. The Demian government is a bit lazy though, so they all look alike.

To add to the problem, there’s an arson! Probably the same guy! Chuuta and Misuzu are sent in to investigate. The scene is already crawling with earth police, making it impossible to gather clues. Instead, Misuzu takes Chuuta over to a nearby cafe. This is a special cafe for aliens, requiring an interplanetary passport or elDLIVE badge to enter. Misuzu’s initial attempts to interrogate people meets with resistance, but Chuuta has no shortage of success. This frustrates her further, and she doubles down on effort to only further her failure. A large alien woman comes after Misuzu for harassing her fiance, but Chuuta disarms the situation by commenting on her homemade purse. The aliens confirm that the suspect was, in fact, the one who started the fire.

Now that time has passed, the officers head back to the scene of the crime to investigate. They run into a human police detective, who finds it strange that they are there. Two teens from a school that was nowhere near there, perhaps they were the arsonists! Thinking quickly, Misuzu takes Chuuta’s arm, and declares that they are on a date to a local film revival. The information checks out, and the investigator heads off. Chuuta, however, can’t get over Misuzu brushing her breasts up against him. His head is about ready to explode. But, who’s that? It’s the culprit! Misuzu takes Chips off to box him in, but Chuuta has completely zoned out. When he snaps to, the baddie runs off. Sprouting his super-speed wings, Chuuta gives chase.

And goes face-first into a street mirror. Fortunately, Misuzu catches the baddie, who is… oh so happy to see her? He is a Demian, of course, but his passport got stolen. Without it, he couldn’t report into elDLIVE about the theft, so he committed a bunch of minor crimes to get their attention. Apparently, the guy from the prologue stole it after he realized that the mixer was filled with aliens. The passport is returned, and the thief gets his memory erased. All’s well that ends well.

Back with Misuzu, Professor Isaac reveals the source of her sensitivity to Chuuta’s SPH. It’s all in her head. After seeing Chuuta succeed without her, she began to see him grow and change. Her own lack of growth caused her mind to have a negative reaction to Chuuta’s smell, relating it to her own feelings of inadequacy. If she herself grows, then his SPH could someday become as soothing as a summer day in a field of flowers.

Okay, this was not a bad episode. The plot is moving slowly along, suggesting that there will be more growth for the characters we have and new characters on the horizon. The explanation of Misuzu’s issues is better than I had expected. They’ve been pushing a romantic connection between her and Chuuta, and it felt as if they were going to make this SPH thing be the tipping point of it all. Fortunately, it was handled as a personal growth quest instead. I found the bungled chase scene hilarious, and the animation at the impact was actually rather impactful. Otherwise, the rest of the episode didn’t really have anything noteworthy. I couldn’t really say that any of the voice acting was really stellar, but it didn’t really pull me out of the experience either. I give this episode seven space passports out of ten.