Akiba'S Trip The Animation

Episode 10

Nothing hurts quite like realizing that your old friends are getting ahead of you in life. When Tamotsu discovers that one of his otaku buddies has finally gotten a girlfriend, his morale takes a major hit. Niwaka and Arisa use the opportunity to set him up on a “fake” date with Mayo. With Mayo's incredible appetite, they end up spending most of their time eating at a variety of restaurants in Akihabara. This leads the quasi-romantic duo into an encounter with another Bugged One, a villainous competitive eater with a plan to consume all the food in town. In order to save the day, Mayo takes on the baddie in a good old-fashioned eating contest.

Compared to most of the series, this episode is less focused in its exploration of otaku hobbies. Tamotsu and Mayo's date feels a bit like a food-themed travel show, as they visit a bunch of specialized (and presumably noteworthy) restaurants and comment on how delicious everything is. If you squint hard enough, it almost looks like an episode of Gourmet Girl Graffiti with less lavish culinary animation. Just as it starts to look like the episode will be all about discovering new restaurants, the show shifts into competitive eating mode. The food connection is there, but the two activities don't really feel related. There's a tenuous connection in the theme of eating for taste instead of gluttonous glory, but it's not strong enough to make all the parts work as a unified whole.

The upside of the not-quite-a-date is that it offers a bit of character development for Mayo. There's not much to it, though we do get the curious implication that she's been alive much longer than her appearance suggests. The date also provides an update to the chemistry between Mayo and Tamotsu, which has been one of the weaker links within the cast of Akiba's Trip in the past. Without any nerdy hobbies to bond over, they haven't always clicked particularly well. The restaurant tour helps to address that by giving them a topic of mutual interest, and it feels like there's a little more substance to their relationship by the end. It's not the most compelling thing in the world, but it does at least help to address one of the show's rougher edges.

The eating contest between Mayo and the villain of the week is, for the most part, nothing to write home about. While it goes through the usual comedic motions, it generally falls short of the show's “so ridiculous it's funny” sweet spot. Compared to the card battle or wrestling match from previous weeks, it just doesn't go far enough over the top. It's amusing enough to be watchable, but it lacks that little spark of insanity that we've seen in the show's strongest episodes. The comedic highlight of the week may actually be the beginning of the episode, where Tamotsu is so shocked by the existence of his buddy's girlfriend that she initially appears as a distortion in the fabric of reality. That's the kind of willful goofiness that Akiba's Trip needs to deliver on more.

This is a competent episode, and it serves a purpose by refining some of the chemistry within the core cast. With a more focused theme and a zanier approach to its comedic elements, it could have worked very well. As it stands, it's a harmless but forgettable entry in the series. With a dwindling number of weeks left in the season, I'm hoping that Akiba's Trip has something wilder and crazier hidden up its sleeve.

Rating: B-

Akiba'S Trip The Animation is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.