Beelzebub gets its Saiyuki on.
What They Say:
It’s a New Year’s special where the entire cast of Beelzebub acts out everyone’s favorite ancient Chinese fable, Journey to the West! See the gang as Son Goku, Sanzou the monk, and everyone else in their quest to reach Tenjiku and obtain the sacred sutra! Or maybe just to eat takoyaki! Whatever!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As we could tell from last week’s preview of this episode, Beelzebub is having fun with its New Years special episode by stepping outside of the storyline to do something fun. Well, fun is definitely subjective here as they’re working the Journey to the West storyline, which we’ve seen adapted countless times over the years in anime and manga form, most famously in Dragon Ball. Letting the cast spend some time taking on alternate roles here can work if you’re a fan of that particular folklore story, but it’s a tough sell in general simply because of its nature. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s something that can either drive you to learn more about it or to just write off the episode entirely.
Amusingly, it does have a brief little recap early on where Furuichi demands that they don’t do this kind of special since big events were just happening in the main storyline, but Oga is determined to do a special since it’s New Years. But even Furuichi calls him out on doing something so cliched as this, but he has hopes that he’s actually Goku and does up the Super Saiyan hair in a really cute way. But Beel is of course really Goku and Furuichi is shoehorned into the Hakkai role, though he can’t help but to feel that he’s a far better Goku. Amusingly, the show does flashback material to these characters pasts, but it uses the main story itself from Beelzebub but has Oga wearing his Sanzou outfit for it which is just priceless. It’s a very cute way of tying things in while having fun with it.
While the episode does go into an actual story mode, dealing with a village that the group comes across that needs their help, it’s pretty inconsequential when you get down to it. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing since the fun with a special episode like thi sis the reworked characters. Having Furuichi mess with Oga by wondering aloud if the distance issue with Beel doesn’t matter at this time hits at the right moment. Alaindelon’s appearance is very amusing since it messes with Hilda a great deal. And there are other little gags about the characters that come into play as well. It’s simply fun to watch the gang act out their roles as the four folk heroes and for Oga to be so completely into it and for Furuichi to see the whole thing as a big drag.
In Summary:
With series like Beelzebub, dealing with the holidays can be a bit difficult since they tend to step out form the norm and do something different to just have fun with it. Episodes like this can be hit or miss for fans and I’ll easily admit over the last twenty years of watching anime, holiday specials like this generally aren’t my cup of tea. With a lengthy history with the Journey to the West storyline, I rather had fun seeing the cast take on these roles and run with it, though it’s definitely not the best I’ve seen. The self aware aspect of it is fun as well, but mostly it’s just a simple gag driven event with the folklore angle in high gar. There are some very good bits to be had here that made me laugh, but the story itself is as simple as you can get. But the various gags work well and left me pleased with it overall, for what it is.
Grade: B
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.
