Oh boy. I’m saying this for more reasons than one. Trust me, there’s a line in this episode that’s basically a throwaway line in the episode that just snapped me into “that had to be an intentional reference, it lines up way too perfectly to be unintentional”. I’m sorry, this episode was way too fun, and I feel like I have to get as much of my thoughts about it out as possible. Let’s get this out of the way.
The episode begins with Nekota and Ogami having a playful little go at each other. This was a fun way to lead into the episode, as it really helps to highlight the kind of dynamic that these two have with each other.
Chisato talks to Ogami and Noren about how Tenma’s been talking to her basically every day…and she folded to going on a date with him, but only if it’s a double date with Ogami and Noren. Same person whose brother was willing to get physical with a kind of person that in this universe is known as a Unicorn. Apparently, she folds rather easily.
Anyway, the day of the double date arrives, with Chisato waiting there first. She’s dressed normally…and then there’s the others. Tenma arrives in workout gear, Noren arrives in the kinds of clothes a celebrity would wear when trying to stay under the radar, and Ogami arrives in what I can only assume is “middle aged man chic”. Look, I’m not good at sensing fashion styles, I’m sorry.
The plan for the day is to get some food, do a bit of shopping, and then watch a movie. Standard middle school dates, I think. I didn’t really get into the relationship game when I was in middle school, so I’m literally just treating what I frequently see in fictional media when it comes to romantic outings as typical. Sorry if any of them lead me wrong.
The eating food and the shopping goes smoothly…it’s the movie where Ogami begins having issues. Part way through, he feels his chest tighten up and he passes out…to wake up as an adult again! To get out of the sight of the genuine middle schoolers, he rushes off to the bathroom, where he begins getting extremely contemplative.
Unfortunately, Tenma goes to look for Ogami, causing the latter to need to rush into a bathroom stall and try and figure out how he’s going to get out of this situation, for Nekota to get on comms and be like “there should be a voice changer in your gear!”, which Ogami does pull out to reveal a cat-shaped sticker with tech parts coming out of it. And then comes the line I alluded to in my first paragraph.
Image source: Crunchyroll (I was unwilling to wrestle with Netflix’s UI just to get ONE screenshot)
That has to be a jab (playful or otherwise) at Detective Conan. I cannot think of any other show that has a bow tie that acts as a voice changer. But considering the fact that both shows involve their protagonists shrinking into younger bodies, and how popular Detective Conan is in Japan, a more unarguable reference to the series like this had to be done eventually.
After some talking with his young voice via the voice changer, we find out that Noren has been kidnapped.
Again.
I genuinely hope this doesn’t become how all of the remaining battles go. Once, I could excuse as “well, they needed a good reason for Noren to begin trusting Ogami”. Twice, maybe having this occur in a bit higher stakes is actually important. If we hit a third time, however, I’m going to have to start asking some questions.
Anyway, after getting information about the people who kidnapped Noren from Chisato, Ogami goes after the kidnappers, turning back into a kid. Genuinely makes me curious why specifically Ogami changed back. It probably had something to do with the movie, or at least the contents of it, though that’ll likely be covered in the future at some point.
Tenma also runs over to assist Ogami. Yay, teamwork! 😀
Anyway, they get inside the location and meet Noren’s kidnappers, Kazuma Rindou and Eiji Rindou. One of the two can do hypnosis, and plans to hypnotize Noren into loving the brother who can’t do hypnosis. Ogami’s like “That’s not right, dude”, and a battle breaks out. While we see some of it in this episode, I think the majority of the next episode is going to focus on the battle. Gun usage is present in the episode.
The brother who can do hypnosis also tried to win over Tenma by stating they’d hypnotize Chisato to be in love with him, but Tenma prefers to do things fair and square instead of cheating through them. W.
I’m excited to see where the story goes from here, as it seems to be building up to something interesting on that front.
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