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Akiba'S Trip The Animation
Episode 8

by Paul Jensen,

How would you rate episode 8 of
Akiba's Trip: The Animation ?
Community score: 4.1

If you started watching Akiba's Trip for its willingness to be a little stupid in pursuit of humor, this episode is for you. While shopping for a rice cooker for their hideout, the team finds that someone's buying up all the appliances in Akihabara and reselling them at higher prices. One of the retail rogues turns out to be Arisa's old martial arts master, but he's under the control of a high-ranking Bugged One. Since they're kicked out of the appliance store before they can settle things with their fists, the villain of the week sets up a no-holds-barred, pro-wrestling-style battle. It's up to Arisa and Tamotsu to defeat the nefarious pair of martial artists and (presumably) save the city.

Let's start by addressing the elephant in the room: this episode's premise is about as silly and thinly developed as we've seen from Akiba's Trip. Even the characters point out that the evil plan to take over the city by buying up every rice cooker in town is, well, kind of dumb. In the early going, all it does is provide a vaguely plausible excuse to have a fight inside an appliance store, which admittedly features some funny moments. During the initial fight against Arisa's master, just about everyone ends up on the receiving end of a deliberately goofy attack. Mayo gets thrown into a washing machine, Tamotsu gets his head stuck in a microwave, and so on. As action for the sake of comedy, it's a rather amusing scene.

There's also some effort at developing Arisa as a character, though it follows the show's pattern of not being particularly deep. We learn that she's actually smart enough to have graduated from college as a child, and that she's been traveling around the world in search of her true calling. There's an understated joke hidden in this backstory: of all the things Arisa could have gone to Japan to study, she's there to master the ways of the otaku. Frankly, we don't learn an awful lot here besides the fact that Arisa isn't a total airhead after all. The episode does at least lend her a little more context as a character, and now we have an explanation for why she can hold her own in a fight despite not having any special powers.

Honestly though, this episode doesn't really find its groove until the fight moves into its second round. A mild parody of professional wrestling is the order of the day, complete with elaborate costumes and a convenient supply of ladders and folding chairs. It's here that the absurdity of the premise starts to make a little more sense; it plays into the over-the-top atmosphere of the scene. It's all a bit cheesy, but it has a fun sense of spectacle to it. We even get some flashes of genuinely strong animation, most notably in the mid-air clash between Arisa and Master. I don't know how well pro wrestling fits into the otaku-focused world of Akiba's Trip, but its inclusion provides a surprising amount of entertainment.

It feels like the series recaptured some of its goofy, logic-be-damned spirit this week. This episode offers plenty of action while maintaining a sense of humor throughout. It's all pretty silly and few of the plot points would hold up under close scrutiny, but I doubt that anyone's here for nuanced writing at this point in the season. It's a self-contained and slightly self-aware piece of entertainment, and it has enough energy to sell itself on those values alone. As long as you don't ask for too much, there's a good time to be had here.

Rating: B

Akiba'S Trip The Animation is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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