Ichiko’s time in a child’s body continues to show her what she’s missing.
What They Say:
After seeing Tsuwabuki’s brothers and sisters in tears over his absence, Ichiko sets out to find him with the help of Momo’o. Seeing how happy theTsuwabuki home life is, Ichiko grows troubled at the realization that something is missing in her own life.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a fun look at things with Ichiko in the past episode with how she lived for a bit, the show shifts back to things that help to show more of what’s missing in her life. With Tsuwabaki having literally fallen off the cliff into oblivion, Ichiko’s now seeing what kind of impact that has on others. And because she’s been regressed to a child’s size and spending time with his family, she gets a very clear look at it all. Her personality is one is one that, sadly, seems like it would work better as a child than the teenager she is, but she does also show some maturity at times and the story as it goes here with Tsuwabaki being lost is one of those.
Seeing the impact on his siblings, especially with the knowledge that he’s instrumental for their well being, she gets all motivated and gets the help she needs to go searching for him from Momo’o, which makes for a pretty nice visual and gives us some solid intensity on her part since she’s taking all of this personally. But it’s also something that Momiji uses to her advantage, showing up out of the blue and sticking her in the back to withdraw some of her good luck. Amusingly, it’s just enough to save a life with what she’s done, which lets us see a side of Momiji that we haven’t seen before. Not that it lasts too long before the silly hits, though there’s an amusing but glossed over twist to Momiji’s continued presence that’s brought into play.
In the end, with Tsuwabaki safe, all this does is to show the pint sized Ichiko what she’s missing in her life. She’s never been truly lonely because she’s never really known anything else. While she has an interest in Tsuwabaki, seeing and spending time with his family really drives home what’s missing in her life. But it’s not something done with a lot of depth or anything but rather shifts quickly to silliness and fluff, especially with Momiji living with her and trashing the place. The group that’s formed has its moments to be sure and we see some of it here. It’s balanced out by what Ichiko now tries to bring to the table, but the key word there is tries as she’s still far too much of a child when you get down to it.
In Summary:
While nowhere near as problematic as Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero, Binbogami Ga continues to have issues that really keep me from connecting with it. Here, it largely comes down to two things. While the show isn’t as hyper as some, it’s just so constant at times that it makes me cringe because it’s acting out in order to get attention. The other is that Ichiko just hasn’t hit the right notes for me to be an interesting character. I like the setup of the show overall, but the combination of her and the relatively dud-like Momiji just leaves me feeling bland. Kind of like Tsuwabaki. He’s a nice guy but there’s not much there to really latch onto. The concept is good, has plenty of room to move around with but is just going for the cheap and easy without putting in the effort.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: FUNimation
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.
