What They Say:
Don has created the ultimate chocolate to trap Hiroshi in one sided love. A new wolf from France is joining Japan’s Secret Doberman corps.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the show having settled in the second episode into doing half episode stories, it’s definitely made me a bit more interested in it since shows that do that tend to have a better balance. Especially since you can enjoy one story and not the other and not feel like the whole episode is a loss. With Don Valentine being a regular foil at this point as well, it managed to show more of how its particular style of comedy would work in the second episode, making me like him more and definitely turning the Don into quite the scene stealer. That’s not something that I expected going into the show with the first episode.
With this episode, Don has decided to use the chocolate giving experience as a way to get at Hiroshi and take him out. His research department has come up with a comical piece of chocolate that has a love potion inside, though it’s a bit complicated in how it works since it’s a two piece chocolate. He intends to trick Hiroshi into falling in love with him, disguised, and then dump him and crush him through those feelings. Though that’s the focus, things have a comical streak due to an accident involving the chocolate Azusa gave her father and he’s now on a hunt for Horishi. That gets everyone else caught up in the wake of destruction which is rather amusing since it just spirals out of control. So when Don gets involved in it, it just gets even weirder, though definitely amusing.
The second half works a different angle, though one that has Don quite nervous at first as a new wolf is on her way from France. Stella’s a pint-sized girl that’s pretty darn adorable as the latest Secret Doberman to be a part of the show. Ogata takes to her pretty well which is cute to see play out since they’re going to partner together, something that Ogata is definitely in favor of. We get some decent time spent with the group as we see Stella get integrated a bit and understand a little about how the training works, making the group fun to watch. But it also shifts as it goes on as Don Valentino puts his silly plan into motion to cause trouble, along with Lorenzo and Gabriella, since the addition of a new wolf is just going to cause him more trouble. It’s kind of restrained but it has a good flow to it and was fun to see.
In Summary:
Cuticle Detective Inaba feels like it’s hit that point where it’s a bit comfortable in itself and I’m adjusting to it. The first two episodes didn’t win me over but I liked some of the gags, even if it did feel like it went just too far sometimes. With the third episode, there’s a familiarity that works to its advantage and even as it does lots and lots of things, it doesn’t feel as frantic as it was before, where it seemed like it was trying to hard. The first half does some fun stuff with the love potion and chocolates in general that made me grin but the second half has a better sense of pacing and growth about it as they introduce the new wolf and we see both sides of her personality as it goes on. Stella certainly made me want to see more of her and I enjoyed just watching what Don Valentino does across both parts of it.
Grade: C+
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.
