Nothing sets Furuichi’s heart aflame like a cute girl.
What They Say:
In search of Alaindelon’s daughter so they can get back home, Oga and the gang head to a city of criminal Demon Beast poachers to rescue her. But before they get the chance, a giant monster appears to take revenge on the poachers for the harm they’ve done to Vlad’s Haunt. And the only one who can stand toe-to-toe with it is… Baby Beel?!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Stuck in the demon world, Oga certainly is the type that will end up getting caught up in other adventures as he does what he can to get away. With a little help from Hilde who is using a special phone to communicate across the worlds to them, she’s doing what she can to guide them out of the rogue land that they’ve ended up in. Unfortunately for them, their hopes of getting help from Alaindelon’s daughter went awry as she’s disappeared, apparently captured by others in a nearby town. Furuichi’s mind wanders easily when he thinks what she may look like, but the truth of the matter gets him inspired to go hunting for Angelica. While she’s not a Hilde knockout, you can understand Furuichi’s interest and support him in this endeavor since she’s in bonds.
It’s amusing that when he does find her in the prison cell, she knows of him and even applies sama as an honorific, which just makes him even more intent on getting her out of there. While that thrills him, it’s pretty intense with what needs to be done when he sees exactly what has to be fought off in order to save her, and her obliviousness to what he has to do is rather amusing since it almost feels like a given to him that he’s going to struggle hard without the woman truly udnerstanding it. What becomes interesting though is that as the forces start to gather around them, big as they are, Beel is the one most affected by it because of the sheer amount of energy and power flowing through the region. The scale of it all is hilarious and is very, very reminiscent of what you’d see a lot of 80’s anime do for a gag.
This gag takes up a good chunk of the second half and it’s a hell of a lot of fun as Beel deals with the oversized enemy that’s come along, but it’s not where the focus really goes like you’d expect. Instead, it has him going over the edge with the power to the dark side so to speak and he just uses his newfound ability in the way you’d expect from a baby demon. Furuichi plays it up well and there’s a great moment with Oga as well in how he handles him, both when he’s riding on Beel and when he has to get him to slow up later on. They do a pretty good job of wrapping things up quickly and not overstaying this particular trip and even though it feels like it’s cut short for a moment, you do realize that it’s for the best as the fun is much better when it takes place in the human world.
In Summary:
The second half of this episode was simply very, very funny to me and had me laughing out loud, as well as others that were in the room who had never seen this show before and just laughed at the hilarity of it all. Beelzebub has been a series that’s really surprised me from the start with its old school feel that’s tweaked and updated just a bit, but still feels more like a throwback than anything else. This episode highlights a lot of what I love about it as it deals with Beel, Oga and Furuichi a lot and this trio has plenty to offer. This episode features a new opening and closing sequence, which seems to point to the idea that it’s not a twenty-four episode series like has been said in certain quarters, and may be the fifty that has been rumored instead. With Crunchyroll listing it as a continuing series for the summer line-up, I know one of the best things about my weekends will definitely be Beelzebub.
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.
