Ushio and Tora Episode 4 [Talking Heads]

Well..this episode sure differentiated from the previous episodes. What do I mean by that? Umm…

That. I mean that. Yeah. Welcome to the first episode where some civilians get killed. Well, anyway I suppose I should explain WHY they’re getting killed. (also, it sure was nice of the demons to bite the car in such a way that it killed her, but left a bit of the door to cover the gore. They may be murdering demons, but they keep the censors happy at least)

So the episode starts off with a bunch of construction guys moving a large rock in a construction site after an old guy warns them not to. They of course ignore him and do it anyway, releasing demon heads and getting them all killed.

So the next day Ushio hears about these deaths in the news and assumes it was Tora and blames him. Tora gets pissed off that he’s being blamed for something he didn’t do and leaves to ACTUALLY go eat some humans.

Meanwhile Ushio’s nice blonde friend is going to go out shopping alone since Bitchface Mcbitch can’t join as she has to help her family in her restaurant. (She’s hardly not in this episode at all! There IS a god!)

Ushio then meets up with the old guy coincidentally who tells Ushio the story of how a priestess chick sealed up these heads in boxes.

While Ushio is doing this, Tora’s trying to find a human to eat but can’t. Whether they have perfume, cologne, metal, or whatever and he’s about to give up until he sees the blond chick. (Who happens to look a lot like the priestess that imprisoned the heads. What a coinkydink!)

The heads arrive and Tora stops them from killing her as he claims that she’s his. Ushio shows up only to be basically backhanded by the heads and knocked out. In the meantime the blond girl runs away.

Tora begins to fight them and well….there’s basically no contest. Tora just kind of fucks up all their day.

One of them lives and is going to attack the girl, but Ushio shows up and stabs it through the head.

The battle over, Ushio apologizes to Tora for blaming him and the blond girl (Inoue) gives him a hamburger.

And that’s where the episode ends.

This episode was definitely a lot darker than the previous three had been. There’s civilian deaths, and not pleasantish ones either. Another thing about this episode is that now Inoue knows about Tora. So she’s become part of the Tora knowledge group. Which is cool as bitchface still doesn’t know about Tora.

This actually was a fun episode. For how dark it was, it was still enjoyable. It is very reminiscent of the early 90’s animes in everything it does. With the exception of the addition of cell phones, this series feels like it could almost BE in the 90’s. It has a feel to it that you could really place it anyway in the recent decades.

I’m actually glad for an episode that focused on Inoue as, if I haven’t made it abundantly clear, I do not like Bitchface. If you couldn’t guess from the fact that I named her “Bitchface”. I am very interested to see where it goes from here as putting Inoue in the group is definitely going to add a new dynamic to the show, as well as hopefully Tora will stop trying to eat people and maybe be a hamburgertarian now.

I wonder what the next episode will bring. If they’ll keep it at this level of violence, or if they’re going to dial it back a bit, to make the violent episodes even more impactful.

In a word, this show is FUN. That’s the word i’d use for it. It’s a kind of fun you don’t see all too often anymore. Normally shows such as this are mired down by brooding shonen heroes or Gokuesc naive characters who are just super amazing because the plot directs they should be. This, in it’s difference is one of the strangest buddy comedies you will come across, and four episodes in, it’s barely scratching the surface, and still holding it’s charm. and apparently as there’s going to be THIRTY NINE episodes of this, I’m in for the long haul. But..I’m okay with that.

Episode 7/10

-Hideki