Never let Beel pack your bags for a trip.
What They Say:
Oga and Kunieda head off to Mapputatsu to train with Kunieda’s grandpa, while Lamia recruits Furuichi to find Lord En himself. Furuichi ends up running into Kanzaki and the rest of the usual Ishiyama bunch, and decides to make this a problem for the whole school!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sometimes it feels like Beelzebub takes some odd turns, especially the start of this episode that has a sequence in which Oga is put on trial and Beel is set as his defense council, which freaks him out since Beel can’t even talk. It’s a wacky sequence that has its cute moments as it involves a number of the supporting cast of ruffians, but it also feels like the kind of piece that just kills a bit of time more than anything else. Which isn’t a bad thing since the series can easily take diversions like this just to have fun, which it needs to after some of the more serious episodes its had as of late. There’s just something very funny about a defense lead by Beel as he’s completely naked for that as well.
Beyond that, the show works in two different directions. The first has Beel and Oga packing up to head over to train with Aoi’s grandfather. What little of it we saw before was definitely amusing so getting more of it, including the fun of seeing Beel pack for it. The journey to where they’re going to train is definitely fun to watch as they have to go by train, walking and even pack animal in order to get there. It’s unfortunately a smaller storyline here than it should be because there are things they do that work, since Aoi brings the kid she watches as well who continues to be adorable.
On the flip side, Furuichi gets his own story arc this time though it’s not exactly something he’s keen on since it involves Lamia. She’s decided he’ll be the human that will help her try and track down Lord En so they can figure out what’s going on over in that part of the storyline. There are some fun moments to be had with it as there’s even a quasi-date feeling about it at times which bothers both of them. A bigger part of it is that they’re involved with a few of the supporting cast of ruffians that we’ve seen over the last bunch of episodes as they can provide a bit of information about what they’re looking for it. It’s a fairly relaxed subplot overall but it has its cute moments.
In Summary:
While there are fun moments to be had here in the episode, it largely ended up disappointing me since it didn’t really do much of anything as a whole. It has some good forward movement moments to it in what it’s doing overall, first by getting Oga going on his training and secondly by pushing Furuichi and Lamia towards finding Lord En and getting all that dealt with. There’s a few little things in the mix as well, such as with Hilda, but it’s a pretty minor piece overall even though it indicates what’s coming down the line. There’s just not that many laughs to be had here, no action and no significant plot points either. It’s a lot of talking, but nothing that really brings us anywhere important or interesting either.
Grade: C
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed 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.
