Can Oga become… respectable?
What They Say:
Oga gains his own follower in Kazuya, who will do anything to become strong like Oga. Oga, increasingly annoyed at Kazuya tailing him everywhere, finally decides to train him. Meanwhile, Aoi is jealous of how easily Azusa, Kazuya’s childhood friend, can act cute and girly in front of a guy, and invites her for a little chat to the shrine where she lives.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Beelzebub found a nice trick to get things back on track with the previous episode by focusing on the fact that the already ruined school was pretty much destroyed by Oga’s last fight there. Pushing the cast to the winds and having several of them show up at a fancy, upper class school gives Oga a whole new realm to play in, though he just wants to get by without any problems at this point in time. Of course, his reputation precedes him and there are those that are looking to see if he’s the real thing, since they have their own uses for him. Putting Oga and the others in this very pretty locale with a different kind of opponent definitely works well and the opening sequence alone sells it perfectly.
With Oga having proven who he is to Kazuya, Kazuya is now going his best to get Oga to train him. Kazuya wasn’t exactly annoying in the limited bit we saw him before, but he takes it up several notches with this episode as he’s almost a creepy stalker with how he pursues him in order to get the training that he wants. He takes it so far as to become his sworn little brother, which kind of unnerves Furuichi as well. Everyone else is kind of amused by this change in things and even Hilde thinks that it’s showing some growth on Oga’s part that he’s moving up in the world. Everything keeps pushing Oga to take him on, mostly against his will, and you just know that when he does, it’s not going to go well in the slightest for anyone involved.
The show doesn’t focus exclusively on this though as it allows a very amusing subplot to unfold with Azusa and Aoi. Because of her nature where she has a hard time talking to guys, she can’t get over the way Azusa is so open, outgoing and pushes back cutely against Kazuya for thins. The two have a comical discussion about it that helps to prod her a bit more towards being an engaging person with Oga since she does have an attraction to him, even if he’s unaware of it. Between that and watching the things that Kazuya does to try and gain favor with Oga, the show moves quickly and with a good amount of comedy and frustration on Oga’s part. Kazuya does manage to win you over to some degree, but you have to laugh at how Furuichi is the one that gets the most grief about this entire ordeal.
In Summary:
Beelzebub does a decent job of letting Kazuya grow on you here, to go from a cutely annoying character to one show shows some real character and potential. While it may feel off to have Oga allow someone to be a follower that he can work and train, Kazuya does present himself in the right way to make it work. Azusa is a bit less defined at this point, but she gets in some cute time as well. A lot of it is told from the point of view of those two, but everyone else gets in some good nods and jokes throughout that lets it work well while never feeling that they’re dominating the episode completely. They have the focus at the moment, but seeing what they’re doing and how Oga reacts to it is good fun. The situation in the new school gets a minor nod, which does influence events here, but it’s not used all that heavily in comparison to the previous episode. Things are looking up for Beelzebub though and the series continues to be an unexpected delight.
Grade: B
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
