English Dub Review: Shikizakura: “Black Team / Sister”

Overview: Kakeru (Bryson Baugus), Oka (Melissa Molano), Ryo (Jeremy Gee) and the gang decide to team up with the Black team to take down a dangerous new kind of Oni. 

Our Take: Further expanding the scope of the organization Oka and the gang belong to, a new elite squad of Oni hunters known as the Black team is introduced, which consists of Oka’s doting older sister, Benio, the strong but soft mannered Issa and the ladies man, Ukon. Despite each being an anime cliché, they are all a delight to watch interact with the team and there is a good balance between their light-hearted moments and their dominant positions as higher-ups as well as antagonists.  

The moral dilemma of being a hero in how it is not the romanticized, idealistic version that Kakeru envisions shows that there is a commitment to adding some real-world stakes, even if it is not too terribly original. But all of this thus far seems to fall on deaf ears as, despite some good defining moments up to this point, Kakeru becomes increasingly hard to find any common ground with in how painfully naïve he is with his simplistic view of heroism yelling at anyone who will listen. The various challenges the show has been emphasizing with real human lives at stake, like that of a father and his young son’s murder in this entry as well as Kakeru’s and his friend’s, hopefully, means it is a proving ground that is building towards actual development and not a reinforcement of the boring character stasis Kakeru finds himself in.