English Dub Review: Million Arthur “I Love Tasty Stuff”

Ratatouille did it better.

Overview

The gang ventures to the Eel Festival Harbor — a small seaside town known for its gourmet attractions. However, once there, they quickly discover the place has been mysteriously abandoned. When they ask a local fisherman about it, he explains that a magical chef drove all cooks out of the city, using a giant knife which could turn anything into a meal. The crew locates this man — who is very clearly an Arthur — and he challenges the team to a cooking competition. Dancho and Tekken lose their minds (and their clothes) over how good the dishes are, but Renkin is unmoved. Insulted, the Chef Arthur challenges Renkin to make a better dish than his by dawn. She spends her time with Rurou, who helps her hone her culinary skill. Renkin’s past is a point of focus when it comes to her limited palate, due to spending most of her life in an orphanage. She looks back on the most delicious thing she’s ever eaten and realizes what to make.

When Chef Arthur presents his extravagant seafood dish, Renkin presents a simple bread bun. He scoffs initially, but while eating it, he is transported back to his time in the orphanage as a boy, where the bread buns were made with love. His ego melts and he concedes to Renkin, realizing that food is about the compassion baked into it. He is reformed and the gang wins — leaving Rurou and Renkin to bond over their histories.

Our Take

Ah yes, a filler episode. There’s a culinary comparison that can be made here, with filler being the…well, filling, and the actual plot being the stale, crunchy exterior. Perhaps that’s being a bit harsh, but shows with “gotta-catch-em-all” concepts like this can get very tedious very quickly if left unchecked. There were some notable aspects of the episode which made the characters more likable, though (which is a wonderful change of pace) so it wasn’t completely useless filler.

It says a lot when an episode which doesn’t feature the protagonist winds up being more enjoyable than any episode where they’re present. Of course, the parts where Dancho was present were (naturally) vapid and overly sexualized. Million Arthur has made it very clear that sex is the main source of comedy in the show, but considering how heavy-handed it is, it’s easy to wonder whether this is really the writers trying to be funny VS the writers trying to market the show for hentai is pretty prominent. The entire scene where Dancho’s and Tekken’s clothes just disintegrate because of how delicious the food is — coupled by their narration of what was effectively an orgasm — was the just…another reason to quit watching. As the great Hayao Miyazaki once said: “Anime was a mistake.”

All of the events in this episode just keep leading back to the same question: “Why isn’t Renkin the leader?” Dancho is disorganized, unfocused, and predatory, while Renkin is practically the reason that the team can even get anything done half the time. Her moment with Rurou felt more sincere than any interaction yet this season (and that casual Rurou lore was pretty nice, too.)

It was cool to see an Arthur who wasn’t a completely unrepentant individual, for once. His past coupled with a few other gags (Bethor’s puffer-fish ailment, the “Gutter Goddess,” and the fact that the uncaring voice lines sync up humorously into a scene sometimes) made this semi-enjoyable. Unfortunately, points will be deducted every time we have to sit here and watch the show tap-dance its way into being a soft-core porno.

This is what’s wrong with anime.