English Dub Review: Stand My Heroes: Piece of Truth “Piece 06”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)
Rei tells Aoyama about the email threat she received at night the previous day. Aoyama then states that for her safety, she’ll have to report to him whenever she makes a move on their shared case.

Heading back inside the office, Rei and Aoyama walk into news of an emergency taking progress. As it turns out though, the definition of an emergency is to help out at a kid’s fair put on by the Ministry of Health. While working there, Rei meets up with Kyouske (who’s Honorary Police Chief for the day) and the one nice guy from STAND (who’s helping with children’s traffic safety classes).

After a long festival, Rei ends up meeting two of the Kujo family’s bodyguards nearby the festival grounds. She chats with the gentler of the two but doesn’t get any important information out of him.

Sometime later, Rei continues to work with Aoyama on their drug case. During so, Rei tells Aoyama about her brief meeting with two of Kujo’s bodyguards. This surprises Aoyama, as their shared case may involve the Kujo family. Soon after, Rei receives a message from one of the Revel members regarding information on the threat she received. She briefly chats with him outside Aoyama’s place, but the discussion is mostly fruitless.

The next day at the DCD offices, Rei catches a nasty cold, yet is still as determined to work hard as ever. Despite this, Seki decides to let her leave early for the day to recuperate but asks Rei to deliver a set of documents to Watabe first.

Upon Rei delivering the documents to Watabe, Watabe offers Rei some tea to help out with her cold. They sit down and chat briefly, with Watabe offering to drive Rei home. While heading home, Rei receives an email from Seki stating that her scouting duties with STAND have been reinstated. The following day, Rei heads out with Aoyama to meet the latest candidate, Soma Kujo, the man Aoyama warned Rei to stay clear from!

Our Take
Boring, meet uneventful, uneventful, meet boring. That’s this episode in a nutshell. I would certainly say it’s a step-up from last week. However, it’s about the equivalent of placing one foot in front of the other. The majority of this week feels uneventful and rather pointless. There are some touching moments here and there, but the rest feels like useless filler to set-up next week’s intense moments. I suppose, in that case, it has some purpose. I just wish purpose would have mixed with entertaining here.

The development of certain elements continues to lack here. The Kujo bodyguards from last time hardly receive any development this time (with the very slight exception of the gentle one). Each one leaves a stench of flat, near one-dimensional underdevelopment that’s most foul. I honestly don’t really understand why this show enjoys slapping more characters onto its plate that have hardly any distinguishable qualities to them. Their lack of traits make me not have any sort of emotions one way or the other. What’s the point in following characters that are uninteresting and unnecessary?

Surprisingly enough though, that doesn’t at all compare to the other developmental nitpick I have. Somehow, the whole Makoto being arrested case, the centerpiece of drama the past two episodes, just up and resolved itself overnight. When did this happen? We saw the DCD and Revel wishing to help Rei in this task, but not the act itself. Why didn’t STAND take a more profound stance in stopping this information from getting out? What on earth happened here? Why the sudden resolution? It just makes the entire dramatics feel pointless.

I enjoyed seeing how many individuals throughout were caring towards Rei and her various situations here. However, there’s still a bit of criticism thrown her way that feels more like a low blow than constructive help. The criticism the Revel member gave to Rei just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I can see that he’s just trying to protect her, but his tone of voice while stating this feels crappy and near-unwarranted. Would it kill the show to give out helpful tips of information in a way that doesn’t feel like its picking on Rei?

The interaction between Rei and the seemingly only nice guy at STAND this episode made my mind explode into a fiery rage. Rei feels awkward talking to him, given what happened at the tail end of the fourth episode. In rebuttal, he states to just let go of the past and it’s not like it’s personal or anything. Perhaps that’s just sheer ignorance on his part, but it felt pretty damn personal to me! Rei is perfectly capable of her scouting duties for STAND, and likely much, much more than that. Yet, her position was put on hold for seemingly attempting to get involved in the Makoto investigation. Hattori’s tone of voice back in Episode 4 when stating to Rei that she’s just a scout just screams personal grudge to me. The one time she attempts to get involved to help undo inaccurate information, she gets the boot.

The members at STAND clearly don’t want her involved in their inner workings. Even with her scouting duties reinstated at the tail end here, the fact that she’s instructed to scout Kujo just feels like a one-time way to use her or even be rid of her for good! It’s absolutely horrific, and I sincerely hope Rei stays safe throughout all of this. With any luck as well, the DCD will finally come to a conclusion regarding STAND and this entire nightmare of a drug case too. To conclude my thoughts though, the entirety of the STAND member’s statement, by and large, feels inaccurate. Plus, based on Rei’s reaction to the STAND member’s words, she seems to be in agreement.

The animation throughout feels particularly stiff this time around. There’s a ton of unappealing shortcuts here, such as lack of movement during the fair parade scene. Some of the expressions here also seem to not match the vocal emotions of the characters as well (particularly affecting Rei throughout the episode). There were similar shortcuts applied to the “dating” sequences towards the beginning of Episode 4, but the still imagery there felt like artistic masterpieces compared to what’s presented here.

I must say, Rei’s ending narration was certainly intriguing. She practically summarizes the events thus far in two keen sentences! I like that her tone of voice lets off a mysterious vibe. Perhaps it’s a sign for the show finally starting to dive deep into the unknown world of drugs? I won’t hold my breath though. Still, it’s a nice touch to the episode overall.

To conclude, we received a bit of an upgrade here this week, but it’s about the equivalent of updating your phone to its latest version. It’s somewhat okay, but nothing really worth discussing. At least I can say this episode felt more enjoyable than the last one did. That’s not saying much in the grand scheme of things though.