I’m not going to sugarcoat it, this episode was all over the place. But then comes Narcistoru, delivering us an unexpected and welcomed development!
That’s why it’s an understatement to say Narcistoru was responsible for salvaging the episode for me. It was exciting to see him finally jumping into the action! Up until now, this guy has been lazying around, but the truth is, he is actually quite strong. And the scary part about this, if this is just him putting in the bare minimum of effort, just how strong is he even he actually decides to put his mind to it? He was called out by Secretoru to get his act together, and to an extent we did see him start doing that by wasting no time to snatch up Pam-Pam and take her hostage when he saw the opportunity to do so. It’s also worth noting he skipped out on the “cheer”, showing he couldn’t care less about it. And when he finally returned, even though it was yet another failed mission on his part– the fact he went on how he wanted to play some more, and his favourite toys always breaks when he plays with them too much was enough to convince Secretoru that he won’t be as lazy going forward. And man, he sure came off super creepy when he said that. But mean… it’s not like we didn’t already know he was like this, but it certainly served as good reminder of that.
But I will say there was one thing that really threw me for a loop. I am not sure if it’s a weird translation choice or what, but when he referred to Amane as his ‘mate’, my immediate reaction was: “WHAT?! EXCUSE ME? WHAT? Narcistoru called Amane his “mate”? WHAT THE F— Since when?!?!” Yes, we have seen him refer to her as his “toy” and a “puppet” he controls, but “mate” is… a very confusing, bizarre and downright creepy choice, unless he was supposed to be referring to ‘colleagues’ or when they were a team. And even so, it still sounds freaking weird coming from him of all people.
The other point of interest Narcistoru had drawn my attention to was in fact his hair. At first I was like, “Oh a mullet”, but as soon as he was handed the corrupted Delicious Stone, it hit me that maybe he had something to do with framing Cinnamon, making him the true traitor. But then again, the whole referring Amane as his mate/toy would be really creepy if that’s the case. Uh so, maybe we should actually hope it’s someone else in this case? Besides, there’s still a chance there’s a mole who set Cinnamon up for the fall is still lurking around CooKingdom.
Overall, if it weren’t for Narcistoru getting involved in the fight, this would have been a very boring episode for me. Of course Yui’s and Ran’s shenanigans when it comes to side-tracking their homework/study sessions are always funny, especially since I can truly relate to them of just how much I loath math, and especially the story problems. They were the bane of my existence! But that was about it until Narcistoru treated us with the unexpected action, which successfully recaptured my attention.
Kome-Kome being a brat and Pam-Pam not putting up with it didn’t really strike me as a surprise. I expected this to happen sooner or later, but I was a bit taken aback by just how petty about it even when Pam-Pam was captured by Narcistoru. She went as far as refusing to receive help from Kome-Kome, and in response: Kome-Kome huffed and puffed saying she didn’t care and refused to help. Talk about the absolute worst time to continue having a spat with one another and terrible priorities! Of course they made up in the end, and Kome-Kome evolved once more. Goodness, just how much is she going to evolve? She’s growing at such a fast rate! It’s nice though to see her being able to communicate properly with the others now, as she’s no longer limited to little whines and “Kome-Kome” speech.
Next week, looks like we’re going to see the first stage of Narcistoru raising the difficulty. We have seen him work on devices, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to see him in a lab with what appears to be robots in the preview. It looks like he might be using the corrupted Delicious Stone on those, which will probably be more powerful than an average Recipeppi. So much for a fun camping trip huh?
Notice: Ep 25 entry will be released as a double-post next week!