Ushio & Tora Episode #03 Anime Review

Nothing like a random brawl to turn people into bros

What They Say:
Long ago, a ferocious monster terrorized the land, until a samurai, wielding the legendary “Beast Spear”, sealed him away. 500 years later, a middle school student named Ushio Aotsuki accidentally uncovers the monster in a hidden cellar under his family’s temple. The unsealed monster and the spear attract many other supernatural creatures to the temple and Ushio is forced to release the monster in order to defeat them. Ushio names the monster “Tora” and unwillingly work together to battle other spirits and demons.

The Review:
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
Another episode, another trip down nostalgia lane in terms of 90′s tropes. This time though in addition to a monster-of-the week story, we’re also introduced a couple of new characters and how they tie into it. While this means a somewhat more self-serious plot, in comparison to the raw energetic fun of the first two episode, this one still makes for a pretty solid entry.

After a brief stint involving Ushio’s dad finding out he went to the basement and picked up the Beast Spear (with an appropriately hilarious reaction to match) the main focus of the episode begins when Ushio goes with Nakamura and Inoue to see some paintings at an art museum. One of the paintings is done by an artist that Ushio’s a big fan of, and Tora figures out the painting’s cursed but decides it’d be funnier not to tell Ushio about it. The next day at school Ushio gets randomly assaulted by an upperclassman named Masaki, (because well…gotta have that obligatory 90′s shonen bully in there somewhere to complete the set of tropes) and gets helped out by a girl named Reiko who happens to be the daughter of the artist who did the painting. Ushio decides he wants to use her as a painting model after figuring out who she is, but gets told to stay away from her. He finds out from Nakamura that after every guy that approached her had one too many brushes with death she became suicidal and depressed.

It’s not quite enough to stop Ushio from trying to befriend her anyway but after getting attacked by a demon and getting into another brawl with Masaki he gets the full story from the latter and it turns out the reason she’s cursed is because her dad became a demon from the stress of his wife walking out on him and decided to personally ensure no one would steal away his daughter. After seeing Ushio get attacked this time, Reiko decides to end things for real and has to be convinced by Ushio and Masaki to continue leaving. Having given her that bit of inspiration, Ushio and Tora manage to get rid of the demon, turning it back into the spirit of Reiko’s father who tells her to live on, allowing her to become friends with Ushio

So ultimately the material in this episode is a pretty straightforward 90′s shonen plot, and thus nothing particularly groundbreaking in that respect but it’s nice little piece and the ending’s kind of sweet, albeit cliche. I particularly like that Ushio’s love for art shown over the last couple of episodes isn’t just meant to be a joke since he isn’t very good at it, and it makes his interest in Reiko feel pretty genuine. Reiko herself felt a bit too one-note in her introduction scene but got gradually fleshed out a bit throughout the episode and seems like a likable enough addition to the cast.  Masaki on the other hand felt like his role in the episode was a bit too abrupt but it’s balanced out by Tora making fun of his random brawls with Ushio in a strange bit of self-awareness for the kind of show this is. At any rate, I found myself laughing right along with him so I guess it works and since he and Ushio sort of become bros at the end it’s probably the last we’ll see of that. Speaking of Tora he sadly didn’t have much to do this episode aside from heckle Ushio, but the scene where he contemplates whether or not to bother rescuing Ushio from the demon was by far the funniest thing, and he continues to be the most entertaining character thus far. There’s still not a whole lot to this show yet, but for the time being it’s still making for some pretty fun popcorn entertainment and sometimes that’s enough.

In Summary:
Ushio & Tora rolls out another monster-of-the-week scenario and combines it with a couple of new character introductions. While the story itself is pretty predictable, it still generally works for what it is, and some of the humor sprinkled throughout it helps to keep things from getting a bit too serious for their own good. The show’s still proving to be a fun little blast and while I’m looking forward to getting the meat of it, the stuff we’re getting right now is pretty enjoyable

Grade: B+

Streamed By: Crunchyroll