The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made

Episode 7

The literal first thing I saw when I turned on The Fruit of Evolution this week was Muscle Guy thrusting his massive thong bulge at Seiichi's face for, like, thirty seconds straight. Then, after screaming about how cool horses are while continuing to shove his dick in our protagonists' faces, he yanks a map to the local horse store out of his taint and implores Seiichi to procure amount for his adventuring. This is, and I am not exaggerating, the closest that this episode comes to telling a coherent and funny joke. It only gets worse from here. So, you'll have to forgive me, dear reader, if I don't put hours of work into coming up with some kind of goofy angle or entertaining gimmick to frame this review with. I'm still reeling from just having to watch the damned thing.

This seventh compilation of damning evidence against The Fruit of Evolution is titled “Lulune Appears!”, though a much more fitting title would have been “Seiichi Screws (Around With) a Donkey for 20 Minutes”, since that's all we get.. Seiichi goes to the horse store, learns about some of the different mounts that exist in this universe, and then he meets a donkey named Lulune with bright pink anime hair and come-hither waifu eyes. One of those random skill acquisition gags makes Seiichi able to communicate with Lulune, and then the pair waste a whole bunch of time with lame slapstick and some good old fashioned elderly abuse (seriously, I'm pretty sure they murdered that stable owner, and not one person even cares enough to call an ambulance).

The show is apparently under the impression that the very existence of this absurd creature will automatically create funny gags and humorous character interactions. It doesn't of course, which means that the entire first two-thirds of “Lulune Appears” is a painfully unfunny waste of time, unless you're one of those Zenitsu stans that enjoys hearing Hiro Shimono screech like a dying seal for thirty minutes straight, in which case…well, I envy you.

Look, I'm not going to lie, I don't even know what to do with this material. The donkey becomes besties with Seiichi because he feeds her some meat buns, and before anyone has the chance to question why an herbivore like Lulune would be getting off on eating the steamed flesh of her kindred animal cousins, that one Puppy Waifu shows up alongside some guy named Clay Berger. For reasons I still can't fully comprehend, Seiichi figures that the best way to inspire Puppy Waifu to enter a painting contest is if he and Lulune enter a local racing championship. Things go well at first, but wouldn't you know it? Lulune forgot to eat breakfast before the show! So, Seiichi has to feed her one of his Evolution Fruits to beat up some monsters and wind the day.

I'm not going to bother detailing the race anymore, but none of it matters, since it's all just a thinly disguised excuse for the inevitable conclusion, where the Fruit of Evolution causes Lulune to transform into a big-tittied human woman in front of Seiichi's own eyes. He is shocked by this, which makes absolutely no sense, because he has seen the magical consequences of eating the fruit twice, now, but whatever. Lulune is a person now, and she's already pledged her undying love to Seiichi. We all know what happens next.

I would like to remind everyone that, for her entire existence up until the last five seconds of this episode, Lulune was a donkey. Saria, at the very least, was a sentient, talking gorilla that had, like, a home, and the capacity to use tools. Lulune was just a literal donkey. The kind you use for riding. And the transportation of goods. Seiichi may be perfectly happy to add the RMS Donkey Diddler to his Fleet of Shameful Perversion, but I wonder how much further into depravity he can descend before his soul is damned forever? He should have taken the advice of Dante and Becky from that modern classic of American Cinema, Clerks II:

Rating:

The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.