| Episode 17. N&K visit a desert village where Nike learns the Cool Pose attack and meets the Earth King to level up with the earth sword razzle dazzle, which dispels anything that walks on the earth, but had a cord attached so not great range as a weapon. Top moment from the episode was when Kukuri created the farting cat guru guru. |
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| Episode 18 Kukuri develops an addiction to chocolate and demands they find more. So, they detour to Ettle Village, but they have supply chain issues (damn, even in my anime...). Dressed as ronin samurai, our heroes wander into the forest to help, running into a group of flower spirits that look like cyclops boos with a flower on their heads (they turn out to be more of those rats from earlier). Also, a land shark, well before Beam was even a thing! Summoning her legendary bird, Kukuri and Nike keep their distance. They face a new enemy sent by Giri, which is a cross between Lumas and Kamek, standing atop a sun that looks similar to one from the Legend of Zelda. Gipple swallows some spicy missiles and spits fire from both ends (been there), while Kukuri reverts to her manic cat mode after getting a taste, easily conquering the land shark and defeating their foes. Nike uses a king of beasts glove (a wolf hand puppet with a crown) to bring Kukuri back under control, but she's still wild. They head to the land of flowers, running into actual flower fairies. Because they look like ruffians, our heroes can't meet the queen. But then Mogel shows up in a giant monster outfit that looks kind of like Kahsegi Gold and gets Kukuri back to normal after 23 tries. They get a change of clothes made out of leaves to avoid being turned into grasshoppers. They meet the queen, who clearly loves Groucho Marx and wears a sumo mawashi, all of which she was apparently wearing to appear more human. She doesn't seem so bad, but then, she hasn't met Adberg yet, who she immediately tries to turn into a grasshopper despite doing so taking up the majority of her power. This turns her into a sleeping baby, so now it's up to our heroes to defend the forest in her stead. Kukuri accepts part of this with gusto, assuming that they now have to raise the baby queen as a couple, scrapbooking and all. She encases herself in a giant flower bud to grow, just in time for Raid to arrive and use this momentary lapse in power. He arrives with a giant venus flytrap-esque robot with a giant pair of legs. It's short earth sword vs. a transformation into a sizeable weredragon that definitely evokes Spiro, flying off with Kukuri. |
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| Episode 18. Kukuri gets enamoured with chocolate on their way to the next village, the Flower village. Kukuri gets turned feral again and runs amok. They meet the queen of the flower village who wears some unusual clothes. She gets scared by north man, turning him into a grasshopper. The queen then reverts to a baby and N&K have to nurse her until she regains her normal form. Whilst this is happening Giri forces arrive in the form of Kaya and Raid. Raid challenges Nike and then turns into a dragon flying off with Kukuri. Looks like Nike is going to have to go on a rescue the princess mission next. |
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| Episode 19 Wrinkle rats time to shine as they attack the vines attached to the flower bud. But light magic can solve for this: Cool Pose time (done in very Tuxedo Mask fashion - Raid also goes hard for this homage later). The bud blooms much faster as a result, while Adberg turns into an egg for some reason before literally just doing a Sailor Moon transformation. Gravity happens and everyone falls down. The queen blooms as a teenager, summons a Gatling gun and wrecks some shit, strangely referencing 24 of all things with a digital clock. Nike can apparently treat her like he's her father now since he helped raise her, and he enforces the new educational policy of "have big boobs". Priorities. The queen makes a plant plane and Adberg and Nike take off to rescue Kukuri. Raid's back to normal. He met up with Vivian, who looks like a if a cat creature with a lute fell into a pile of Harley Quinn's purple-dyed clothing at Hot Topic. They've holed up at the weird tower Natpja that looks like someone poorly stacked blocks. Our heroes find them by following the bad poetry vibes coming off of Raid as he tries to unsuccessfully woo Kukuri. Adberg and Nike assault the tower in tiny plant tanks, making quick work of the monster fodder. Barckweener's back in giant head form and he's apparently the "ghost" of the tower. He exposits about a couple like Kukuri and Nike that once stayed in the tower. Fish came between them, and the girl, a Migu Migu tribe member, accidentally made him disappear with Guru Guru. This sealing magic was later used to seal away Giri. The boy was released much later at the same age. Anyway, Nike and Adberg make it to the top of the tower only to be rendered powerless by Raid's rapping. Adberg, Nike and Gipple join too, so it's a rap off. After Kukuri strikes an imposing cute pose, Raid tells them to leave, and they fly backwards to the queen. After the credits, we have a nice goodbye scene. Kukuri gets a chocolate tree, which puts the sweet shop back in business. |
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| Episode 19. Nike heads to save Kukuri from a haunted tower, but not after the queen finally blossoms as a teenager. Guessing that story about guru guru sealing power and childhood will be important later. Highlights today were the queens gatling gun, Adberg's Sailor Moon transformation and Nike acting as a dad. |
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| Episode 20 Nike defeats a monster on a beach by cheating. They head to Lef Island (presumably across from Righ Island). Kukuri hangs out in a library. They have what looks like sea urchins mixed with brussels sprouts for dinner. This happens again. And again... and again... Nike calls this being stuck, but I call it Groundhog Day. Even when they try to leave, it rains and they're forced to stay. They run into a demon named Galriro (looks like a character from Black Butler) who informs them that they are being watched. As part of an effort to change things up, they encourage Kukuri's new friend to finish a set of clothing she was making, which she does. As a reward for encouraging her, her father gives him a headband with a star on it, and time seems to be moving forward. So they try to leave... only to hit an invisible wall. So, they go looking for more clues, with Kukuri returning to the library. Looks like the woman she's been meeting at the library is the one watching them. Using her new friend as a distraction, Kukuri and Nike escape the island by ramming through the invisible wall. Yay for glitches! Turns out the lady in the library was likely the girl who served Amberjack fish to the boy in the story Barckweener told Kukuri at the Tower of Batoha last episode. I guess she was a Guru Guru user in her youth, too. Galriro hitches a ride with our heroes on their way out and tells them that Kukuri was part of the reason time stopped on the island. The goddesses of time appear to them on a giant clock, seeking to punish them by taking 50 years of their time. Thankfully, the headband Nike received (called Star's Adornment) lets them correct a single mistake, so all is well. Strangely, a bit of a serious episode this time around, all about growing and moving forward despite the comforts of staying in place. |
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| Episode 20. You're right @whiteflame55 that was a strangely serious episode. Also not sure if it was just me but the detail for the backgrounds looked improved, the library and parts of the town for example. So N&K got stuck in a groundhog day situation. I'm not exactly sure what happened though. The demon Galriro tells them Triko never existed and it was them who stopped time when they arrived. Hmm. If they stopped time then was it all just to learn a lesson? Not sure of the point but onto the next continent. |
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| We start with a brief recap of the events of the show so far. It's been a lot, and it's just kind of hilarious to run through it with these short clips and so little context. So it turns out Giri is revived. Good joke at the start where Nike and Kukuri don't seem to care because, let's face it, they have been given very little reason to fear Giri aside from everyone telling them he's dangerous. Also, I enjoy that the failed villains have to go off and guard places where our heroes have already been, knowing full well that they won't come back. It's a pretty innovative punishment. Our heroes arrive on a very large and largely unknown continent, immediately running into the monster from Batoha, who has a pretty funny moment where he steps off his flying creature onto theirs, then gets left behind, so he just decides to sit down and tell them where to go for Giri's coming out party. There, they run into a group of older adventurers who call themselves G-Fantasy, who are mainly just older embodiments of various hero tropes who are absolutely shredded. They also run into a set of naked Grape Apes with clubs, chocobos with purple Beetles wigs, and Adberg cosplays Saiki Kusuo. Everyone's relying on Kukuri to counter Giri. In a fight with a weird scorpion-dragonite mix, Kukuri summons one of those tall white rabbits from early Simpsons, which immediately fails. G-Fantasy embody their own Super Sentai to make a group cool pose, which empowers the rabbit just long enough to fall on the foe and win the day. Adberg cosplays Heihachi Mashima. G-Force gives them a giant key to some nearby Jitari ruins and leaves them to handle it because the Grim Reaper is a thing (pretty sure that outline on his left is Ryuk). Adberg cosplays Super Saiyan Blue. Moving on, they find the Spring Master with his blue afro. He slaps Adberg, who's pretending to be the hero. We narrowly avoid a fan service scene, thankfully. Meanwhile, Toma and Juju are bored, so Juju accosts a dude and takes his box. Turns out there's a mage inside, which can fold out and fly around. He steals Juju, with Toma and his master in pursuit. Somehow, this leads them to our heroes. Raid shows up with a jetpack. Toma fires a Bullet Bill at him (which is just a bit of armor over a barrel, but same basic thing), Raid almost kills Kukuri, whose light and fluffy hair glows pink and floats her into the sky. Turns out Nike can do this too, with a pink afro and body hair, most of which he shouldn't have at his age (referencing Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo - crazy show with a lead who has an afro and uses his nose hairs to fight). Our heroes arrive at the Jitari Ruins. |
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| Episode 21. N&K make it to a new continent and meet G-Fantasy, an adventure group comprised of older members. Juju gets kidnapped and Toma makes it to join up with N&K as they approach the Jitari ruins. Must be time for the final confrontation with Giri soon. |
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| Episode 22 The story of the ruins involves them being built upside down - Rugrats did that. They run into another invisible wall around them. Adberg becomes a catman to break it, summoning a giant green statue of a dude pointing at his crotch to give them access. The enemy leader has a not so subtle hidden Mickey on his head. Juju was brought here to open a box with a powerful mage inside. In the face of overwhelming wrinkle rats, our heroes phase though a wall and fall down some stairs, finding themselves in one of the Great Fairy Fountains, guarded by a floating face that looks the same as those weird sea urchin/brussel sprout mixes. They find a massive keyhole, use the key they got previously here, and come upon a giant stone fist called the Hero's Fist. Apparently, afro dude from last episode was the King of Water. Faced with the challenge of proving himself the hero to use the Fist, his parents telepathically link to him and tell him of his origins. He apparently [url=https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-last-jedi-rey-palpatine.html#:~:text=Speculation%20continued%20right%20up%20to,You're%20nothing.%E2%80%9D]comes from nothing[/url] (this did come out the same year as Last Jedi... just saying...), though he's the king of the plebians, so that's something. Still, after a pep talk, he punches the green thing and gains the Hero's Fist, which now covers his arm like a Hulk Hand. He also gets an angel secretary named Lyric. He also pulls an Idiocracy and gives himself the hero name "Uh". He also punches the King of Water and gets the Sword of Water, a double helix that looks like the Fierce Deity Sword. Nike and crew reach Juju and Nike glitches through an invisible wall (yay for exploits!). The mage in a box traps Nike, but he breaks out with his new sword, simultaneously cutting through the seal on the larger box containing the stronger mage. He's over 20,000! Turns out the two mages are one in the same, merging to form a weird black sun. He turns everyone but Kukuri and Gipple to stone and can regenerate. Kukuri cries and forms a weird eyeball Guru Guru in the sky (her strongest one yet - level 12!) that dumps massive tears, which undoes petrification and grows lots of plants. G-Fantasy steps in and, by their powers combined, they make a new anime OP (the lyrics are all about how old they are) that somehow freezes the villain in place. References aplenty: some Naruto running, book reading and shogi playing (basically a trope at this point), croquet for some reason (guessing Alice in Wonderland), Karate Kid, some tree pruning, I think this DBZ reference, though the most overt is a bunch of Yu Yu Hakusho references (one of them literally wields Kurama's thorn whip). Nike knocks down the ruins with a jab from his giant punch, flipping the whole thing upside down and crushing the mage. They head off to the village of wind spirits, who all look like Gipple. The King of Wind is a Sephiroth-looking due with long green hair. He just kind of gives Nike the Sword of Wind, which becomes his scarf, because, as Juju puts it, they're running out of episodes. Nike has completed his Razzle Dazzle, and the kings appear to him out of the clouds like Mufasa talking over each other. Turns out, Giri's on the final continent, a star-like continent in the middle of all the others. They try to fly over, but the legendary bird doesn't quite make it (hilarious to see Toma dumping herbs from his bag to make them lighter). Juju empowers it, literally just growing a little helicopter out the top plus a pair of small wings. |
whiteflame55Jan 28, 2023 8:14 AM
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| It's my 41st bday today but we're all under the weather so going to be a quiet day. Maybe a sushi platter for dinner as a treat if I get an appetite, not really eaten much last couple of days. Episode 22. Packed episode with lots of easter eggs. The party complete the upside down ruins defeating the mage that kidnapped Juju in the process. Nike gets the water and wind swords so now all that's left is the final confrontation with Giri. |
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| Happy birthday @23feanor! Sorry to hear you're not feeling well, hope you recover quickly. Episode 23 Giri is a giant purple haze with red eyes now. He’s in his castle. Our heroes arrive on the final continent. They’re attacked by beheaded Golems from Pokemon before they’re trapped in a fairy labyrinth by Kukuri on accident. They run into Kuruje (I appreciate that Juju and Toma have no idea who this is), who gives them her bathtub to travel inside. They reach the cone-like castle and use Adberg as a distraction in… a pretty well animated bit of CGI, surprisingly. They’re forced to split up at the entrance, going through the two gendered bathrooms that are there (Kukuri wouldn’t have it any other way), facing down Raid and Kaya, the former resolved to save Kukuri and the latter resolved to defeat her. Both fights are fierce, with Juju and Toma largely being inconsequential beyond moral support. Kaya summons Freiza’s energy ball and Raid his Darkness Sword. The latter is defeated by holding a sword with his butt, Nike channeling his perverted master, while Kukuri looks to have been obliterated. Thankfully, it was a Guru-Guru-made clone of her (Kage Bushin anyone?), so she’s fine. Raid and Kaya give up, and our heroes fly up to see Giri. We get a fake-out that Giri is Adberg, then that he’s Gipple’s ass, then a basic red demon. Galriro arrives to, once again, give exposition. He says that Giri doesn’t exist, that Kukuri subconsciously created him. Having accepted that her adventure so far has been great, they accept the “treasure” of the friends they made along the way… yep, they went there. Except, the Runrun arrives and tells them it’s all hogwash…!?!? I’m betting Galriro’s Giri, just a hunch. |
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| @whiteflame55 thanks, we went out for a meal last night and I thought i was ok, but then my cold has come back double over night and I feel terrible today. Some anime and chill today methinks. Episode 23. That was a good episode, liked virtual North North dance and Kukuri vs Kay and Raid vs Nike fights. So who is the true demon king Giri, or is there even a demon king at all? Will it be Galriro or someone or something completely random that makes no sense. We shall find out tomorrow. |
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| Happy Birthday @23feanor from me too, get better soon! Regarding episode write-ups I give up, and move on straight to the overall rating comment. Sorry for that and a big thank you @whiteflame55 who went great lengths to find and document all those references and easter eggs. Invaluable service. Mahoujin Guruguru (2017) (Magical Circle, 2017) Organized chaos is the best word to describe the 3rd remake of the JRPG parody classic. We follow the quests and romance of two kids, visiting oodles of creative chars and places. Below a cartoonish kids show look, it's a smart zany genre deconstruction. To me those fast moving Japanese comedy shows with random, whacky comedy usually are straining watches. My old neurons can only fire this and this fast, and many of the jokes are lost in translation. If they ever were smart in Japanese to start with. This show has just the right tempo to follow easily, yet is still damn fast. The very high creativity prevents bore-out by repetition and 2nd grade jokes. I think it pays to be the 3rd remake with dozens of time proven episodes to pick the best from. So despite speed, the comedy remains fresh and unpredictable until the very last moment. Not even the running gags become stale. The other factor are the really loveable characters, both the MCs and the plethora of side characters. While they are cartoonish, they just have enough character to be interesting and even have a little bit of development. Of course the two MCs have plenty of it, in the end it's their coming of age story. Guru Guru is little more here than code for "childhood imaginative powers". It also helps that the show retains a light-hearted, innocent and good-natured character. (7.5/10) |
inimJan 29, 2023 6:15 AM
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| @23feanor ugh, sounds like an ordeal. Hope a down day will do you some good. @inim happy to do it. Honestly, part of the fun of the show has been puzzling these things out. I'm still loving it this far in, so something's working. Onto the finale! Episode 24 Turns out that the sphere they ran into at the end of the last episode was just producing reflections of Kukuri's power. The Demon King himself is inside the shadow below the sphere, which is well guarded, but somehow Adberg keeps the monsters at bay with his crazy dance moves. All their old villains are back for payback. Our heroes are stronger now, but there's too many of them. Hilariously, our heroes have actually leveled up very little (just level 4 for Nike and level 5 for Kukuri), while Toma and Juju are overleveled like crazy (29 and 38, respectively). At last, Giri arrives on the scene, looking... kind of like the Spiral King from TTGL, but with more edgy black fire. Surprisingly, our heroes make short work of most of the monsters despite their numbers, leaving a mountain of corpses in their wake, though the boss monsters are a handful. G-Fantasy, Sly with his band of thieves, Kuruji, Planano, Derida, Adamski, Clemente and Schavel, and Goedicke all show up to even the odds (because yes, it's that kind of episode), and though they're still outnumbered, this motley crew quickly dispatches with the remaining monsters. They even bring back the bracelets, summoning the giant guardian spirit. Nike needs to combine the swords of the four kings to fight Giri, but his memories of those kings' ridiculous faces (and the loin cloth of the Wind King) put him off. Still, Razzle Dazzle happens, as he creates the ultimate Hero's Sword, which is too heavy for him to carry alone. He wields it together with Kukuri, and they cut into Giri's shadow, getting sucked in. In Giri's shadow, they find his final form (I guess this is evoking Dormamu, though the meme "this isn't even my final form" definitely springs to mind). The fight is brutal. Nike wields Kukuri's tears as his water blade, and Kukuri resolves to seal Giri, even if it costs them as well. Surprisingly, Nike's power is now overwhelming Giri somehow because he needs to defecate, which is just the best - so much better than that power of friendship or love BS. Kukuri crafts a special circle, which resembles what we've been seeing at the end of every episode (nice touch), which forms a sphere around them, protecting them from Giri before sealing him with... what looks like a bandage over his shadow. Oh, and the angel shows up to write this all down in her book, proclaiming that the North North dance was responsible for sealing Giri. "The birth of the worst legend ever" indeed! Flower petals fall all over the world and we see all the people in places they've been enjoying them. And yes, we get our magic confession moment... which is interrupted by Nike's impending need to dump. Giri's incomplete sealing resembles Nike's own struggles. Prince Nothing shows up because absolutely no one knows what to do, which seems appropriate, and somehow clears up Nike's poop chute. At last, we get the confession, which is basically reciprocated in a surprisingly cute moment after Nike asks her to call him by his name rather than "Hero." They head to the Heavenly Realm, and run into the real Barckweener, who looks like a normal-ish dude, despite all the weird spirits he left around. They find Kukuri's parents there. Turns out the President, who has been a dog this whole time, is pretty normal too (though they just sort of say that off-screen). Also turns out that the Migu Migu tribe didn't disappear, they just dressed as monsters in Alahabica and no one noticed. Guess the Heavenly Realm is a revolving door and... Kukuri's parents left her for no reason... huh... After the credits, the world is once again threatened by a new Demon King and Nike is called into service by his parents again, who slingshot him over to Kukuri once again. Yay for sequel baiting! Kukuri can't use Guru Guru anymore, but he still invites her to travel with him, in a pretty sweet sendoff. Overall, a fun watch. I'm with @inim on the fast paced jokes really working for me in this series. Not everything landed, but you hardly had the time to be frustrated by any that fell short because there was always one coming up shortly thereafter. There's a lot of parody in here and I enjoy that. Just the process of tracking as much of it as I could was a lot of fun. It's a pretty basic story made interesting by how it was told, and that's something I can get behind. I think organized chaos is right - it's the kind of show that keeps you guessing because little to nothing turned out as I expected. Solid 7.7/10 for me. |
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| I would second a big thank you to @whiteflame55 for your episode write ups as I only got about 10% of the references and easter eggs myself, for example I knew about Kirby but never played any of the games, same with Pokemon. So having your episode reviews with links made the watching experience infinitely better. Episode 24. All the monsters and allies from the series turn up for a battle royale. Giri is a shadow and defeated by the love guru guru despite Nike needing to go toilet. Kukuri confesses her love for Nike, and although he doesn't actually respond to the confession, asks her to call him Nike instead of Hero. N&K ascend to the heavenly realm and discover the Migi Migi tribe, including Kukuri's parents, who often visit Alphahabica dressed as monsters. In the epilogue we see N&K head off on another adventure following the announcement of a new demon lord. I thought this series was a bit like Excel Saga, packed with wacky chaos, however, this show has a linear story, the quest to defeat Giri, whereas Excel Saga was a lot of episodic stories until the final few eps. Same score as Excel Saga for me, low 7/10. |
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