Welcome to Filler Hell!
Episode 29
Not a whole lot going on this episode, but since Mari needed to take Narcistoru back to CooKingdom to be imprisoned, the girls joined him and were able to meet the King and Queen in person, and check out the place. It was nice to get a bit more lore about the Delicioustones, and how the Bundoru Gang is now in possession of the supposed technology to produced their own Delicioustones. However as it stands, they don’t have any specific leads on how they are able to do that, as the “Master” (as Mari refers to) who created the originals in the first place has either already passed or has disappeared without a word.
We also saw Mari try to broach into the circumstances surrounding Cinnamon and how he might have been framed by another. But unfortunately Fennel wasn’t interested in re-opening the investigation. If anything it just makes me even more suspicious of him (I’ve always been suspicious of him from the start though haha).
It was also nice to finally see Secretoru being proactive for an exchange. I certainly didn’t take her as the brazen type to go as far as walking into the royal palace of CooKingdom and search for Recipeppi to capture there. I’m not really sure if it was the brightest idea, but considering she actually had almost gotten away with it if she hadn’t bumped into Cerfeuil, I guess she is shrewd enough to pull off again if she desired to.
Episode 30
Another episode with not much going on, so this is going to be short and sweet. Mari realized he had gone broke from spending so much money on food, so he needed to find a way to fill up his wallet again. The girls suggested him to participate in a cooking Grand Prix where he could win special coupons to use around town, and decide to make Fried Noodles for it. I will say, it was pretty funny how they went as far as making a freaking dramatic promotional video for Mari’s stall!
While doing so, we also got to learn about how important Yui’s grandma was to the town, and how she was a legend a sort. She was also responsible for spreading around the Lucky Cat statue, which has become the town’s icon ever since.
They threw us some crumbs such as how they have been discarding the lower quality Delicioutones in a space-time distortion, while keeping some of the better ones to use for themselves. We also got to see how Secretoru’s powers in action, which turned out to be a combination of robbing people of not just their memories to the food, but erasing the food’s entire existence. Sheesh.
Episode 31
Just based on the preview from last week, I knew coming into this episode was going to bore me– and I was right, because this episode was frankly a total waste of time. It was a pure RANDOM filler. It did nothing to move the story forward, it did not even contribute to character development. No, instead, out of the blue, they drop in a Yui doppelganger Princess Maira of Isuki Island who happened to hear about this town from Takumi’s father. She didn’t get the chance to experience the food so she and Yui swap places so she could have fun for the day. And that’s it. That’s the episode. If this is not your cup of tea, you can skip it without worrying about anything, because guess what– Secretoru/Bundoru Gang didn’t even show up this week!
Also was it just me, or this whole foreign princess swap-a-roo is a terribly outdated trope? I think a lot of it had to do with the fact they went as far as having dressed up as such, including Maira’s cousin Sanza who kidnapped her because he wants to be King. I actually cringed.
But you know what bugs me the most about these kinds of wasteful episodes? It’s when they could be used to flesh out the characters who need more time for development. You know who hasn’t had a whole lot of time to do that? Yui and Takumi. I’m actually shocked by how much Yui has been pushed to the sidelines so far! I keep waiting to see what her character arc is going to be, and they just keep going back to Ran, Kokone and Amane and I’m like, “What about Yui?!” Arg! And don’t even get me started on Takumi, who has been more or less stuck either watching from the sidelines or doing the absolute bare minimum. This infuriates me because we know his character holds a huge potential given his father’s connection to CooKingdom and potentially being the very same Cinamon who was framed for theft and treason. I just don’t want Takumi to be stuck on the bench until his plot-point finally becomes the main focus. I just feel like I’ve been baited with again, and honestly I find it incredibly frustrating as I was really hopeful this time for a male character to be more closely involved. The setting is just right, now let him be a part of it damn it!
[Sighs in Exasperation] Next week is a Ran focused episode, a noddle contest. I’m just going to go ahead and give you guys a heads up, I’m going to hold off the entry until episode 33. And if that’s yet another filler or an episode that I have little to nothing to say about it, I will do a triple post with episode 34. These past few episodes have been quite frankly boring to me, which is often the case when we’re stuck in between the arcs as it always seems to at this point of the series. So it’s just better to do a bulk release… God I hope this filler hell ends soon.
Notice: Ep 32 and 33 entries will be released with Ep 34 next week as a triple post. Thanks for understanding.