Acro Trip

Episode 8

The fact that Acro Trip barely seems to be concerned with being a functional television show is one of its greatest charms, in my opinion. It looks like hot garbage, its characters are all incompetent lunatics, and its stories mostly serve as silly-joke delivery mechanisms, with concerns of plot and world-building coming at a distant second on the priority list. At least, that's how it is most of the time. Last week, we saw what happened when Acro Trip decided to give a shit and provide some backstory for Chrome and Mashirou, and it was…pretty okay! Not the funniest episode of the series, by any means, but it was entertaining enough. This week, though, Acro Trip doubles down on introducing new story elements and side characters, and the results are…mixed.

Of course, this also means that I'm stuck eating crow once again, since I was the one asking for kooky new side characters just a few weeks ago. The thing is, I was hoping that those new characters would be…fun, I guess? I cackled at the sheer audacity of Acro Trip introducing Chizuko's secret teacher-father as a plot element that was just casually revealed off-screen by Grandpa before the episode even began, but that's pretty much the only entertaining thing about the guy. Like, I get the joke of him being just as much of a tokusatsu dweeb as his daughter, except that Papa Date's obsession is directed towards Chrome instead of Berry Blossom, but that's pretty much all the show does with the character this week. He's introduced, is kind of awarded for a couple of minutes, and then completely disappears until he shows up for a lame sight gag at the end of the episode. Weak sauce, man.

I feel the same about Kokoa, the new antagonist who has dropped in to make Chizuko and Chrome's lives even more ridiculous and inconvenient. I like the idea of a “villainous” character who is determined to screw with everyone in the cast. Still, Kokoa's whole schtick is that she's a tiny little girl who is as liable to cry over a lost stuffy as she is to steal Chizuko's new Magic Card and break into Fossa Magna Base. I'm also very confused about why her crony/babysitter, Tsuki, just…doesn't have a complete face, like he's some random background extra who accidentally got cast in a speaking role.

The final sketch of the episode sees Chizuko and Chrome crashing Berry Blossom's local hand-shake event, which is the cutest sequence of the week, but it's only a few minutes long and doesn't really go anywhere, either. At the very least, we do get one laugh-out-loud funny gag when Berry Blossom almost snaps Chrome's hand clean off at the wrist. Still, I wish a single funny joke wasn't the most memorable part of this otherwise disappointing and disjointed episode of Acro Trip.

Rating:

Acro Trip 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.