Recap: The Rare One/Yo-Kai Manjimutt/Here Comes Roughraff

Now it’s time for the third episode of the Yo-Kai Watch dub. It’s already clear that I don’t like the anime; and the low ratings don’t bode well for the game being launched against Call of Duty: Black Ops III, which is now the most-anticipated game of the holidays. Yo-Kai Watch didn’t even chart among Nielsen’s list. So let’s get started. 

We open the first segment, “The Rare One” on Mrs. Adams returning home on her search for a rare snack for Nate; and she’s of course wearing the standard trench coat and hat that the Ninja Turtles often favored.

I'd tell you where I was, but then I'd have to kill you.

What do you know: they not only changed the dessert to an American Whoopie pie, they photoshopped the label in the most unconvincing manner possible.

It's almost as bad as when 4Kids turned a rice ball into a sub sandwich!

Yet, this is immediately rendered pointless by the fact that “Mr. Piehole,” the baker; looks and acts like the disciplined head of a typical Japanese noodle house. Once again, allow this Awkward Zombie comic to point out the inconsistency (thanks again to Katie for pointing this out).

What’s more; they cut him actually eating the “pie.” Who cares about indulgences when we have toys to preemptively sell? Seriously, the first wave comes out New Year’s Day 2016; which doesn’t strike me as a logical date to launch a new toy. I guess Christmas would have been too obvious for Hino.

Furthering this is Noko, clearly this franchise’s equivalent of Dunsparce. Little side note, I plan to do the Johto episode involving them for snakes in the cycle of my Chinese Zodiac theme. Ideally, I want to be finished before the actual Year of the Monkey in February 2016; so I can have the slate clean.

Then, they start multiplying like rabbits. The noises they make sound like some novelty you’d get at the dollar store.

Even so, Whisper denies there are any, even as he holds one in his hands! What a fucking dunce. 

The next segment, “Yo-Kai Manjimutt” (Jinmenken in Japan) with Nate being woken up by Whisper. Personally, I prefer waking up to rock and roll than to this discount Slimer.

What did I do last night?

At school, Eddie mentions something about an “HFD”. Look, I have trouble dealing with adult conspiracy theorists; I don’t need clowns like you turning into Alex Jones on Pixie Sticks!

It’s short for “Human Face Dog,” as he pulls out his phone and claim it’s self-explanatory. First of all, I detest the idea that elementary schoolers have cell phones now; as I got my first one in high school. Second of all, no, it isn’t. Nothing about this anime is. If there’s one thing I like less than a liar, it’s someone who isn’t good at lying.

Eddie claims he saw it on the internet, but Bear; still sounding like Ralph Wiggum without the charm, says he hopes it’s wrong. He probably got it off Kotaku.

My cat's breath smells like cat food!

Then, Katie admits to seeing the “HFD” (I’m already getting sick of typing this, to be honest) when she was on her way home from school last night. Oy vey; this is going to hurt. 

Nate then decides to take care of it; and Whisper says it’s because of Katie that he’s doing this. He fantasizes about a kiss from her as reward. Skip!

We are then formally introduced to Manjimutt; and I’m starting to see what my associate Kohdok said about finding him creepy from the dub’s rendition of him. Still, I do find him more interesting than Nate or Whisper. 

He starts twiddling with an umbrella; all while sounding like another Family Guy character, Herbert the pervert. I just hope that umbrella doesn’t get too suggestive.

You like popsicles? I got a whole freezer full in my basement.

Golf swing aside, this voice dubbing is awful; and the acting is really damn stiff too. Even the normally lively Johnny Yong Bosch seems embalmed here. This is the same guy who was Lelouch, Origins Brock, Shotaro Kaneda, Ichigo Kurosaki and Vash the Stampede; and I still think he was more articulate when he was a Power Ranger!

Now, in the voice actor’s defense; he does have a tongue-in-cheek rendition of how off-putting the character of Manjimutt might be to some people. Face it: if this is many of the voice cast’s first anime; they’re probably doing it to get the bills paid more than anything.

Hey there muscle arm, what's the matter?

OK, aside from turning the beer into toilet water; this oden should be a tip-off that this clearly isn’t the fictional town of Springdale, Idaho. I may have never been to Idaho, but I’m fairly certain they don’t have oden there. This isn’t like in “Island of the Giant Pokémon” where it’s some fantasy counterpart to the actual Kanto region; this is almost as bad as turning all the booze into juice in a certain infamous One Piece dub. Suffice to say; I was ecstatic when Funimation effectively declared an open bar for the characters to get shitfaced at every opportunity.

Even the VA must’ve known this edit was bullshit, since the way he pours Nate and Whisper each a soda pop clearly devours the old ham and cheese. The way Manjimutt delivers the “glug glug glug”

line makes it clear he’s not going to rein it in for a role he knows sucks balls.

Do the Dew, boys. You'll need it.

He was fired after working for 32 years due to “budget cuts.” Why do I imagine this happening to Level-5 if this trend is on its way out?

He goes to vent his sorrows at the same oden; apparently enjoying frothy mugs of water, or if you’re generous; vodka. Team Four Star got some good mileage out of mocking this edit in early DBZ; so I’d love to see what any budding abridgers or YouTube Poop makers could do with this anime.

Ten minutes in, and rather than being drunk; he was merely grieving when the freak accident that killed him and turned him into a Yokai occurred. Yeah, this is exactly what happens when people soberly grieve! To think I was still doing this blog and listening to sad music as my outlets!

His “grief-stricken” swaying caused him to crash into a toy poodle and a bunch of 2X4s. From that day forward; he was known as Manjimutt.

I heard a joke once. Man goes to doctor, says he feels depressed and alone and what lies ahead feels vague and uncertain. Doctor says “treatment is simple. The great clown, Pagliacci is in town. Go see him, that will pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. He cries, “but doctor, I am Pagliacci.” Good joke. Everybody laughs. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.

Now comes the fantasy of Manjimutt’s new life as a toy poodle; but so far it’s shaping up to be more Benji than Beethoven. I know they were a terrier and a St. Bernard, respectively, but still. 

Also, they surprisingly left in Manjimutt taking a leak in the alley amid all the edits and cuts I mentioned above. So, Japanese food is bad; beer is bad; but public urination is OK? Where are your priorities, Disney XD and Viz? Apparently it’s because in their ‘verse; the cops still frown on taking a piss in the alley. Still not as funny as the Dude being held by the chief of police of Malibu.

Mr. Treehorn tells us he had to eject you from his garden party, that you were drunk and abusive.

Also, for some reason; one cop’s callsign is Adam-12. What kid is going to get that reference? I barely understand it in the Seltzer and Friedberg sense of “it exists, therefore, we must reference it.” The joke comes in the next step; twisting the reference in some way, making fun of it if you will. This is why I try to make my pop-culture references around the same pool as the 13-25 age range I target; though I do sometimes take a gamble on a more obscure one and maybe tell people to Google it.

As he’s being arrested, Manjimutt proclaims “this is Yokai profiling.” That’s not funny, you sick fuck. Did anyone at Viz stop and consider all these high-profile incidents that have happened over the past year? This most recent incident in Roseburg is also causing me to pull the plug on my planned Danganronpa recap for this month and replace it with something lighter for the time being.

Last but not least, we begin “Here Comes Roughraff”; as Bear proclaims there’s something wrong with Eddie. Forget Eddie, I think you need to go see a doctor. It seems Eddie is going all Straight Outta Compton on us; with his jacket slung over his shoulder and a pair of briefs photoshopped in like how they put a pair of boxer shorts on Zatch Bell (by the way; not doing that one, and I may consider making a top 13 anime I refuse to recap on this blog in the near future).

Worse than that, Bear still claims you can see his butt crack, even though that’s clearly not the case with the photoshopped tighty-whities. Did they even watch this before they aired it? Granted, that would require watching the whole thing; no easy task in itself, but come on!

Also, as Mr. Enter posited; just as it takes more than cute things to entertain girls, it takes more than gross things to entertain boys. This network has proven that. Star VS The Forces of Evil is a girl’s show that’s daring and adventurous; and Gravity Falls is a boy’s show that’s deep and often moving.

He uses the Yo-Kai Watch on Eddie, and Roughraff is there! I just wish he were showing us how to do the Time Warp (by the way, possibly doing a midnight Rocky Horror Picture Show for the 40th anniversary, it should be fun.). 

Whisper says that Roughraff can turn teenagers into punks; but this is like cosplay compared to what the Tiger gang does in Durarara x2 or all those vampires in Seraph of the End. You get what I’m saying? In an age where anime can tell such great stories; I was thoroughly disappointed by Yo-Kai Watch’s insipid approach to its subject matter.

Roughraff is not intimidated by Nate; proclaiming he’s shaking in his boots. You’re not wearing any, dipshit. I. Hate. This. Dub. And. This. Show. They face off at the riverbank; something that Tyson would have already done with the Street Sharks by now. 

This may just be stock footage; but once again, kudos to the animation being really good even if I don’t share the enthusiasm others have towards the show. Nate summons Jibanyan to take on Roughraff. What could possibly go wrong?

Surprise surprise! He’s corrupted into Baddinyan! Enlighten me on why you changed the name to that, boys? Wario and Waluigi proved that American audiences would accept a pun on the Japanese term “warui” (Literally, “bad”); so why would you do the same thing that they did in the NES version of Bionic Commando, calling the Nazis “Badds?” I only wish there were a profane “Master-D” with an exploding head to liven this up. 

Again, they proceed to run this joke into the ground by saying all the bad things he might do while not showing very many of them. He then guzzles his favorite snack, two chocolate bars before dinner. Still putting my chips on the Black Ops guys, since they’ve got automatic weapons and a lucrative teenage and young adult market.

This asshole's got nothing on Bobby Kotick.

Seriously, his misdeeds amount to variations on guzzling candy and things to not do in bed. Top-rated show in Japan, folks! Is it really a surprise it’s fizzling here? Even a filler episode of Pokémon The Series XY on Cartoon Network can pull a million viewers easy!

Even Nate says this is “total weak sauce,” and Whisper says he can’t watch anymore. Too bad, there’s still at least 4 minutes left in this turkey of an anime. He decides to summon Manjimutt; proclaiming “we need an adult to handle this.” I am an adult; and I still think this makes as much sense as a Satoshi Kon fever dream. He steps in, and promptly gets decked by Roughraff.

SHORYUKEN!

Then, it’s an official grudge match between these two Yokai. I feel like when I was playing Killer Instinct with some friends when I used to live in Nevada. I think I’ll need to after this. 

RIPTOR! SABREWULF! FIGHT ON!

The dubbing just gets worse and worse; rife with dated slang and poor voice acting and lip-syncing. In fact, I overheard some people on the bus comparing them to old Godzilla movies where their lips never matched the dialog at all.

I coulda been a contender.

So, we close on Manjimutt back in jail for somehow breaking out when he was summoned. I’m not making that up; folks. 

That’s the initial dub of Yo-Kai Watch; folks. While it may not be the worst anime I’ve seen of its kind; it’s almost twice as insufferable because of its potential that it seems to perpetually whiz down its leg like Manjimutt in a back alley. While the animation is slick and colorful; the writing and voice acting are horrendous, and nothing about the anime makes any sense. Thus; what was the biggest “mons” series since Pokémon in Japan is on its way to being buried in the US; especially if the likes of the second season of Star Wars Rebels and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy have anything to say about it. Now, my viewfinder will go back to my initial plans; so check back with one last Yo-Kai Watch recap on the Halloween episode real soon. Bang.