English Dub Review : Kakuriyo -Bed and Breakfast for Spirits- “Orio-ya’s Young Hostess and Young Master”

Didn’t Aoi use to be a prisoner at this inn?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Oryou shows up one day at Orio-ya, much to the dismay of the hotel’s young hostess, “Nene”, while Aoi and Ginji get to preparing food, as they usually do. Meanwhile, a group of toad ayakashi is staying at the inn, drinking up all the booze and getting frisky with the employees. Things go sour when an employee accidentally spills food on the boss frog, but Oryou steps in with her hostess charms and saves the evening.

Nene gets frustrated and gets stuck in the form of a mouse. Because of this, she gets sent on a brief vacation to de-stress and get better, which means it’s up to Aoi to revive her spirits with good food and a pleasant day of shopping. Along the way, Aoi learns about Nene’s past, her time at the inn, and her tender heart.

Our Take:

This episode focuses almost entirely on Nene, which is a huge pitfall for this week’s story. A story like this is dependent on the quality of the character that it’s about, and because Nene doesn’t strike me as particularly interesting, I was completely bored with everything that was happening on screen. I thought we were finally getting on track with this “Southern Lands Ritual” plotline that seemed to be actually taking the series somewhere, but I guess the showrunners needed a filler episode to pad out the show a little bit longer.

Aoi is as stiff as ever, with all the life and expression of a cardboard cutout dipped into a bowl of oatmeal. She serves as little more than a reflection of the characters she hangs around, and her interactions with Nene are no different. She basically just floats around, allowing her to go on and on about her backstory without really having much to do herself. I suppose I should be grateful, there isn’t an extended cooking sequence to roll my eyes at this time around, but that doesn’t keep me any more entertained.

I’m not entirely sure why they decided to bring an old character like Oryou back for this episode since she doesn’t end up doing very much. I can understand that she serves to make Nene feel bad about herself and her hostessing, but she doesn’t involve herself in that conflict in a meaningful way. Furthermore, it doesn’t even feel like Nene’s conflict in this episode gets resolved. She doesn’t redeem herself through her work or face the toads again, she just spends a day with Aoi and ends up feeling better. It’s as if this show believes that all a character’s problems can be solved by having a happy day out with a friend or a home-cooked meal.

The last three minutes of the episode try to shoehorn a love triangle plot between her and Hideyoshi the front desk clerk, but it’s too late in the episode to really matter. Again, maybe if there was some actual focus in the episode on Hideyoshi’s relationship with Nene, that particular conflict might be more meaningful.

Kakuriyo continues to be a thin stew of bland characters and boring plotlines. Though it rests on the laurels of being a “lighthearted” show about shinto spirits, “lighthearted” should never translate to mediocrity. If a show can’t put something actually interesting or unique on the screen, then it shouldn’t bother wasting my time.