Himekawa lets his true colors shine at long last.
What They Say:
There’s a new transfer student in the Special Class, and he’s beautiful with silky smooth hair… Wait, it’s just Himekawa. But what happened to his signature pompadour? Next, the Great Demon Lord pays the Oga household a visit, and Oga’s dad has to entertain him while Hilda prepares a fitting welcome. Can he get through this without causing an interdimensional incident?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The things we’ve learned about Himekawa since he got involved in things with Lord En has definitely been amusing. Finding out that he was really the rich boy who was rebelling with his gang look, pompadour and so forth was fun and made sense as there’s always one of those in these kinds of groups. But with all the time spent dealing with that and the last few episodes where things just went off the rails a bit, Himekawa has decided to stop hiding that part of his life. He’s gone back to his perfectly done hair, expensive clothes and showing off his chest. He’s turned into a goofy version of an ultimate hottie and the girls in the school are beyond excited.
It’s just a temporary issue though as the material he uses to create his pompadour is hard to get and he’s out of it, so he’s just slumming it as he “normally” would be without it. That of course causes plenty of problems at the school since everyone is either interested in him or frustrated by him. It’s exhausting being beautiful! There’s some back and forth throughout this half length part of the show and discovering that a lot of Himekawa’s strength comes from his pompadour and the special gel they get for it just makes him all the more fun. And seeing how Kanzaki reacts to it all and deals with the situation in the end just adds more fun to it.
The second half is a very different kind of fun as the Great Demon Lord has come to visit his son and that means spending time with Oga’s family. In fact, as Hilda goes into panic mode to make sure everything is done right and all the rituals are followed, Oga’s father ends up spending all the time with the Great Demon Lord. He’s great in how he deals with him by trying to do anything he needs only to find that the Great Demon Lord just wants to play golf and have a spot of leisure time like that. Seeing the two of them out on the course is priceless and the way the Great Demon Lord carries himself is spot on since he’s practically on a mini vacation here. While there’s plenty of fun with Hilda, Oga and the rest, I’d have excised it all just to watch the Great Demon Lord and Oga’s father hang out for the day.
In Summary:
Beelzebub has a good episode here with two stories to it and it’s easy to see how one would work for people better than the other. I’ve long enjoyed stories like the second half here going all the way back to the dad in Urusei Yatsura so having this here is just spot on. There’s just so much fun to the two dads in this that it hits all the right notes for me. The first half with Himekawa has some good stuff as well as we get to know more about what powers him and how he is when he’s “normal” so to speak. There’s some fun to it to be sure and if they did it as a full length story it’d probably work just as well if not better by giving it more attention, but as a half length it just moves quickly and fun. Definitely a good standalone episode overall that left me grinning throughout.
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.
