Honestly, gotta say, today, when I sat down and watched this episode of Tribe Cool Crew, I did NOT say to myself. “Gee Hideki, I sure do hope there’s a sniper in this episode.” Because honestly, that would sound stupid. But… I guess they showed me!

So the episode starts off with Haneru getting tickets to go with his friend to go to a Jey show live. We see that the rest are going, but Yuzuru and Mizuki have to go to a relay live taping instead.

That isn’t the big deal however as it seems that not everyone in the world is happy with Jey’s “Peace dance tour” as there are people who want to shoot his face. Because peace is for noobs.  Unfortunately, all they know is that there will be one sniper. But…they don’t know what to do about it. Moonwalking guy recommends that they cancel the concert. However that’s discarded as apparently that’s a silly idea. (I don’t think it is)

As the concert approaches, Haneru’s old basketball buddy reminds him that  not everyone loves peace and there are some jerks who will want to kill Jey for being peace like. And then he does his Spike Spiegel impression.

Damn it. this makes me want to go listen to "Ballad of Fallen Angels"
Damn it. this makes me want to go listen to “Ballad of Fallen Angels”

So it’s the day of the concert and they still haven’t found the sniper. However, while waiting on line, Haneru bumps into a creepy looking guy with a cane and sunglasses.

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he’s the sniper isn’t he?

I mean….they kind of made him weird looking and ominous so…no shock there.

So yeah, that guy goes around, knocks out a guard, takes his uniform and sets up to fucking Shoot Jey in his pretty face.

At this point I was still reeling at the fact that they put a SNIPER in Tribe Cool Crew. I’m like..um…what who what?

However, luckily Haneru notices the guy and points him out to the moonwalking guy. Still, the concert has already started and there’s no way in hell anyone’s going to get to him before he shoots Jey. And so…and i’m not making this up, Somehow Haneru fucking throws HIS SHOE from about 300 feet away and nails this guy in the fucking face.

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That’s not just a good shot. that’s fucking INSANE.

Afterwards, they capture the sniper and jey finishes his concert, the audience, none the wiser.

and, for the first time since this series began, we actually get to see Jey dance in all his CGI glory.

look at this CG glory. LOOK AT IT!
look at this CG glory. LOOK AT IT!

 

The concert ends and the moonwalking guy asks Haneru to stay behind after the concert to thank him properly. And because of this, Haneru thinks he understands what Jey meant by dance fighting at the next part of the competition.

And that’s where the episode ends.

So this was an interesting episode. It didn’t forward the dance road competition, but it did teach us a little more about Jey, the dance god of this world. He is shown to be a very mellow and calm guy who just wants the best for the world.

It also shows us that Haneru is forced to grow a little when he realizes that Jey’s message isn’t all about rainbows and sunshine, there’ s a dark side as well.

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This show has just taken a turn that I honestly didn’t expect it to. I don’t know if they’ll actually revisit this or if it was a one off thing, but honestly, if they bring this sort of issue up again i’ll actually be very impressed. For the weirdness it had, I was actually extremely interested the entire time which is more than I can say for a bunch of the past episodes.

This episode didn’t feature a lot of the main characters at all except for maybe some Haneru as it focused a lot on Jey and his entourage. And it was interesting to see him finally dance after fucking 15 episodes of people TELLING us that he’s amazing at dancing.

Albeit it wasn’t Dance Road, it was still  a good episode with a turn I didn’t expect. If the rest of the episodes are going to be of this caliber, then hopefully this means the arc of fillers is finally over. And I couldn’t be happier.

Episode 7.5/10

-Hideki