Monday, January 9, 2012

Anime Reviews: Beelzebub Episode 44 - I Must Become Stronger

Plot Summary
Oga and Teimou's Shadow Group's training starts at a waterfall. They assume that they have to sit under the waterfall, but Aoi's grandfather tells them all to go gather stones. After their gathering devolves into a competition, with Oga picking the biggest rock (read: boulder), they are told they have to split the rocks in half. None of them believe it possible, until Aoi demonstrates the technique.


Meanwhile, Furuichi is still looking for En. He comes across an arcade being occupied by delinquents, and the situation almost turns sour, before Nene and the rest of the Ishiyama delinquents show up.


Kotaro manages to split his boulder. Oga refuses to switch to a smaller rock, despite everyone telling him there's no way he can split such a large boulder on his first try. Kotaro taunts Oga, who snaps and uses the former's face to split the boulder.


Despite everyone finishing the exercise, Oga is still unable to split his boulder. While the others eat, Oga keeps trying to figure out how to split his boulder. After dinner they head to a nearby temple to spend the night, but Oga refuses to leave his boulder. Aoi slaps him to get his attention, but he only throws a tantrum and hugs his boulder. Finally she knocks him out and drags him off.


The temple's priest has his daughter show them to their rooms, while she is leading them the girl, Isa, notices that Beel is a demon. After being shown to their rooms, everyone goes to use the baths. The guys plan to peek on the girls, but neglect to take into account that the girls can hear their scheming. After Isa reveals to Aoi that she can sense demons, Aoi asks her if she can show her how to fight demons.


Oga and Ittousai, Aoi's grandfather, have a small talk, where the latter encourages Oga to develop his power gradually. Oga goes out to train during the night, saying that he has no time to grow stronger gradually. Aoi wakes up the next morning and discovers that Oga never came back in. She runs out to the training field and finds him collapsed next to his boulder, which has been split cleanly in two. After breakfast Ittousai sends Oga off to a special training course, where he finds Saotome's theme music.

Oh yeah, and Saotome.

My Opinion
Despite the majority of this episode being the typical shonen training trope, where the hero grows stronger on guts alone, there was a lot to like about it. The ongoing search for En broke up the training scenes nicely, and Aoi's scenes with Isa promise some interesting development for her.


What really makes this episode stand out is the abundant use of comedy. The moment where Oga uses Kotaro's face to split the boulder is among the funniest moments based purely on Oga's VA's performance, and the fake sexy legs was the only "trap" gag that was actually funny. Mainly because it didn't involve Alaindelon.


If you liked my review, Watch the Episode Here!

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