It’s time for Hilda to get some much needed attention.
What They Say:
Everyone is acting strange around Hilda. Could this be a plot by Oga and friends to conquer the Demon World? Also, Kanzaki calls out Himekawa for a man to man meeting. They clash in a fierce battle… of dumb ideas.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When people start acting strange, you definitely find yourself on edge wondering what’s going on. But you also start to wonder if maybe it’s something that’s in your head and you try and figure it out. Of course, with the Beelzebub cast, it’s not like the people involved are subtle. When Hilda returns home from shopping, not only is Oga’s sister being very nice, but everyone else is acting off and almost ignoring her in some ways. Even Beel is giving her the cold shoulder and no matter how many cute things she does to try and get his attention, they end up failing. Of course, that just sends her into a tailspin of her own as she can’t help but to think that her master now hates her.
There are plenty of other signs of things going on, though you can tell easily what it is from the start with how everyone is acting. When Hilda runs across some of Aoi’s friends from school that are heading to Oga’s , she can’t help but to wonder what they have in store as there are mysterious “weaponized” candles, food and more. Of course, while we can figure out easily that it’s a party, her mind goes to violence as she visualizes the group as a whole under Beel organizing a massive coup to take over the Demon Realm. While the gig is obvious, the execution is spot on as we see how she envisions them doing it, complete with masks, capes and evil intent. It’s really quite striking.
The second half gives us some time with some of the other characters uninvolved in the first story as it deals with Himekawa, who I still find myself wishing he was playing the role of the rich boy and now the thug with the pompadour. Here, he ends up with some of his group and dealing with Kanzak as the two end up getting into a competition with each other as that’s how their mindset works. It’s more just a war of words than anything else as they come up with names for each other, groups that they could run and so forth, but it also gets into some really silly physical comedy as well. While I’ve been more a fan of Himekawaw for a bit, Kanzaki comes across pretty fun here as well which surprised me as I haven’t cared for him too much from the start of the show. Watching this small group of guys being relaxed in their own way with each other and just messing with each other works really well.
In Summary:
Beelzebub continues its run of standalone episodes designed to just have fun with the characters and it’s a welcome format. This one does the half episode split for stories and focuses on completely different characters for each of them and just really goes for the humor. The first half deals well with an obvious setup as it lets Hilda’s mind do most of the work with how she imagines things while the second half lets the normal guys get caught up in their own bit of grandstanding with each other, just with a bit more of an edge to it. An edge of utter silliness. The series continues to make me smile and while I do generally like the arc storylines, I find myself enjoying these one off kinds of episodes even more now and really looking forward to them just to enjoy the cast and the fun of the situation.
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.
