English Dub Review: Kakuriyo -Bed and Breakfast for Spirits- “Traces of a Dream in the Dragon Palace.”

Requiem for a Dragon Dream.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

This week, Aoi and the Master seek to find the mermaid scale for the sacred ritual they need to save the southern lands. They head to the ocean, where Aoi meets Princess Iso, a powerful ocean spirit who adopted Ginji and his brother at a young age and raised them both.

Aoi communes with Princess Iso and learns Ginji’s and Ranmaru’s tale and eventually receives the mermaid scale after a brief run-in with a monstrous ogre. Her and the master head back to Orio-ya where she cooks dinner for her and her coworkers and expresses her desire to help with the southern lands ritual further.

Our Take:

Well, I’ve got to give Kakuriyo its due credit, they’ve made an attempt at having a plot that resembles something of an adventure. We get Aoi in a new location other than the inn, which is decent, and hey, anytime our main character is put in an uncomfortable position that means we get a chance for some real conflict! Except even though we’re in a different location we soon realize that we’ve haven’t left the familiar at all, Aoi ends up doing what she always does, having a happy little time with new spirit friends where, inevitably, her skill at cooking comes into play as a deus ex machina. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This episode we get mostly just a flashback, the battered workhorse of the cliche anime tropes. A story that could be better told perhaps through a conflict with Genji and Ranmaru or through a more interesting side story to frame their origin, but nope. Nope, it’s just the same old thing we’ve come to expect just positioned a little bit differently. Same shitty storytelling, different episode, you might say.

And look, I’m not really buying this Princess Iso character, either. Does this show really expect to introduce and wrap up a pivotal character in one episode? This is a character we have no connection to, someone who hasn’t been the least bit important to us in any way for the past 19 episodes, and now we just get told this person is important? No, Kakuriyo, that’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.

But wait? What’s this? A monster here to threaten Aoi at the halfway point? Danger? Conflict? Nope! Just kidding! Don’t blink or you’ll miss it because Deus Ex Master over here leaps in and with one flick of the wrist the threat is gone before it even begins. Then its time for our denouement where Aoi continues to amaze and impress the people around her undeservedly.

Do I sound bitter? Do I sound cynical? Good, because if there was ever an anime to be cynical about, this is it. Week after week its nothing but pandering, laziness, broken animation and terrible scripting. Twenty weeks and I don’t think I’ve seen one episode of this show that I would call “good.” It ranges from passable to disgusting, and this episode is no exception. Please, do not watch this, for your sanity and mine.