English Dub Review: RUMBLE GARANNDOLL “I’d Like to Turn the Tables With You (If Possible)!”

Overview: After their new addition to the revolution squad, Kuroki Misa locked herself up and terrorized the other Akihabara Revolution members by making them play video games with her. She defeated them easily but Hosomichi somehow used a secret bug to beat Misa in her own game. Misa suspects Hosomichi has a secret past that he is hiding from everyone makes a deal with him. Not only is she a NEET but she is also a very clever Black hat Hacker. She agrees to unlock her room for the other girls if he would do one last task for her. She wanted to play dungeon with him and not just any dungeon. Hosomichi had to travel to the black market of Akihabara and retrieve a rare item for her. Hosomichi agrees only because Munakata pressured him to do so OR ELSE!!!

Hosomichi, Ukai, and Balzac form a team and go into the depths of Akihabara Black Game Market. Ukai and Balzac get lost one after another by the lucrative items they find there. Hosomichi now alone in the dark gets trapped inside a storage room and Misa gets very worried about his safety there. She comes out of her little box and rescues Hosomichi in order to find that rare item together. While they were searching the dungeon of Akihabara, our villain Yakumo Kamizuru appears with her giant mecha. She plans to test her new toy and what better way to test its power than to destroy the gross Akihabara Black Market filled with anime, games, and idol merchandise.

Misa has a deep connection with the market and decides to become a battery girl for Hosomichi to save the day. They suit up and become CAT 3, the mecha cat. The mecha cat had low power than the SHARK 1 and lower agility than the RABBIT 2. This got Misa very sad and her energy level depleted. But luckily, Hosomichi was on a roll that day and showed her the rare item which was an old-school cable for Misa’s console. Misa cheered with joy and by doing so her energy level became immeasurably high. This gave CAT 3 the ultimate transformation and CAT 3 became an aerial kotatsu that shoots rockets. With their newly gained power, they defeat Kamizuru and save the day. In the end, Misa opened herself to the other girls and saw a brother figure inside Hosomichi.

Our Take: There are very few mecha anime that has a very detailed story with developing characters. Rumble Garanndoll is like one of those shows that just knows what its audiences are looking for and just delivers it. The voice acting of each character is always on point and the quirky jokes just hit. The show has a great sense of humor and has a smooth transition from making jokes to epic mecha battles. Each episode has its own story and shows how each Batterygirl is different in her own way.

After that unbelievable defeat, Akatsuki was under fire by the hire-ups and was bashed by them. He wanted to show them his worth by winning the hearts of the people by winning a marathon but our rebellions crashed his plan by showing up to the marathon and stealing his thunder. This made the hire-ups angry to the point that they were about to replace him but a mysterious character saves Akatsuki from his punishment and proposes a secret task to him specially.

We transition to our heroes in Akihabara who were celebrating their victory for the day and planning for the big festival that’s coming. We get to see Hosomichi’s past and how he was left alone in this world to fight for survival. On the day of the festival, we see a mysterious character enter the festival only to be revealed as Akatsuki. Apparently, he was given a secret mission to infiltrate the festival and gain information. Hayate Makami follows him there only to get lost moments later.

Rin was on patrolling duty and finds Hayate being scammed by a shady seller. She saves her and decides to give Hayate a tour of Akihabara. Meanwhile, Akatsuki finds himself in an old Ramen cart and has a conversation with the seller. Surprisingly, Hosomichi was also in the Ramen cart and was forced into their conversation. They ate beer, ramen, and talked about the current state of the world and how both sides feel about the situation. Their conversations lead to a part where Akatsuki found respect towards Hosomichi as a person.

Rin, on the other hand, was having the time of her life with Hayate. They explored all the best stalls of Akihabara and ate the best food. They also got matching key-chains and clicked photos as if they were not at war with each other. Thankfully, both had not found out about each other’s identities. I wish I could say the same about Akatsuki and Hosomichi. During their conversation, Munakata suddenly entered the picture and he was totally drunk, spouting nonsense. He also put his hands on Ramen seller only to be interrupted by Akatsuki himself. He revealed his true identity to Murakata and showed his hatred towards the people of Akihabara because of people like Murakata. The show ends with an epic stare-off between Akatsuki and Hosomichi and that’s where we are today. Who knows what going to happen in the next episode? Maybe we get to see a huge mecha battle.

Overall, this episode was a hard needed break for us to find out more in-depth about the characters we are seeing on screen. As of now, we didn’t have a strong bond with the characters. We only knew why they were fighting for. But with this episode, we get to know the people of Akihabara a bit more and why Akatsuki thinks he is on the right side. The episode was amazing for me, if I had to nitpick a bit I would say, I wish I got to see a bit more of the other Batterygirls and know about them a bit more.