Didn’t expect this, did you? Honestly, the story behind this is that the translator wanted to break the record of episodes released at once.

Episodes 7 and 8 are pretty standard stock plots, “A character has to become an idol” and “A parent visits and wants to get a character married.” Pretty average.

Episode 9 is special, because it has Hayami become Changerion like he always wanted! It may foreshadow something in the future, too…

Episode 10 is neat, because it guest stars Thane Camus as one of the interpreters!

Episodes 11 and 12 join into each other. They feature the introduction of Inoue’s possibly most favorite character type: the suave, pretentious, well-dressed prick who knows everything. Episode 11 is also really heartwarming.

Some notes:

• Konjac is an Asian vegetable, commonly used in shirataki and oden.
• “Daruma-san ga Koronda” is a childrens’ game in Japan. It’s very similar to Red Light Green Light.

TRIVIA: Kuroiwa Shogo is played by Ogawa Atsushi. After working on this show, he became friends with Shirakura, Nagaishi, and Inoue; and subsequently has several appearances in the Heisei Era Kamen Rider series, such as Sawaki Tetsuya in Kamen Rider Agito, and Minami Masahiko in Kamen Rider 555.

Get the episodes at the Releases Page!

These episodes are pretty good. It takes a few episodes to notice certain gimmicks characters have, along with subtle acting (in this show?). Hayami will often say “What the hell?” and “I’m furiously devoted!”.

Episode 5 is a solid whodunit. The kid’s not bad, and the other guest actors are solid too.

Episode 6 is just… heavy. Not dark, but heavy. Inoue shows his writing range here, along with really good acting by Hagino and Ota Yumi, who plays Jiro. Also, I suspect there were some scenes cut from this episode, as some can be seen in the teaser in 5, as well as the clipshow episode later on.

TRIVIA: Akira drives a real beat-up Citroen 2CV. The car the crew had was a real junker. Since they couldn’t get replacement parts easily, it had to be transported on a trailer between scenes.

Episodes are at the Releases Page!