Nanbaka

Episode 11

The latest Nanbaka episode seems like it should be a goofy breather, since it's all about what the guys of Building 13 won from the New Year's Tournament. However, it promises the start of a new arc instead. Luckily, this one only seems to be two episodes long. That's a good thing considering Nanbaka is not very successful at maintaining quality across multi-episode arcs. Unfortunately, this episode is already on rocky ground from the start. This series is usually pretty good at juggling different tones, but it has trouble this week. Episode 11 is designed as a combination of comedy and drama, but the shifts here make it feel like it's trivializing one or the other.

The episode starts with a focus on Rock, who gets the brick oven of his dreams. The other inmates doubt it can be amazing as he claims, but lo and behold—they try out the pizza and peach buns from it, and they're downright magical. One Chinese inmate from another building who "never enjoyed eating before" bites into the peach buns and gets awestruck by nostalgia. Rock has truly proven the power of food, I guess. This segment of the episode can't just go for humor though. When it tries for deeper emotional meaning, that's where things get tricky.

We see Rock's backstory of his life at an earlier prison, where he first met Jyugo. Rock was apparently a spoiled rich boy who couldn't eat the disgusting prison food. The wardens took pleasure in torturing him with this, but Jyugo insisting on giving him bread anyway. When Rock refused it, Jyugo broke his chains and took him along to a local diner, where Rock gorged on all the burgers he could eat. This sealed his bond with Jyugo, leading to the kind of emotional dependence we saw from the other cellmates last episode.

In the second half of the episode, Nanbaka repeats this pattern with Nico. His segments always seem to be the weakest and include the worst comedy, even when it doesn't come from him directly. This segment wastes a lot of time making fun of the lead prison scientists, who are a couple and argue a lot and should divorce but don't to spare their robot maid's feelings, etc. Anyway, the point is that the female scientist has built Nico his video game wonderland, as well as a handheld with the perfect games for him. Nico isn't interested in the latter though, because he prefers gaming with his friends. So all the characters make various attempts at the crane game while Nico tells his own story.

Jyugo first found Nico on a hospital bed at a previous prison. He had seemingly lost the will to live, but Jyugo once again used his power to instantly break his chains. Then I guess he gave Nico some manga to read? Whatever, I guess Nico is a man of simple pleasures. These moments are why the "drama" in this episode falls flat; they're just too silly and feel like much ado about nothing. It's hard to tell if that's the point—and it's supposed to be funny—or if Nanbaka really wants you to feel something deeper for Nico here. Mixing tones is great, but it still has to be clear to viewers what they're supposed to get out of a scene. Otherwise, you risk either trivializing serious stuff or excessive melodrama over something obviously silly. Either can feel insulting to the audience.

The important thing about these sequences is what we learn about Jyugo. His mysterious chain-breaking abilities (the dude could give Daenerys Targaryen a run for her money) just add further to the mysteries surrounding him. Why would prison scientists grant him the ability to break other inmates out? Wouldn't that be counterproductive? Or were those abilities there before—thus the reason he was such a tempting test subject? These are the questions I want Nanbaka to answer. Hopefully it can next episode, since they'll need something to fill the other half after Uno gets his reward and backstory. Nanbaka is reaching the end of its first half with too many unanswered questions for my liking.

Rating: B-

Nanbaka is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rose is a music Ph.D. student who loves overanalyzing anime soundtracks. Follow her on her media blog Rose's Turn, and on Twitter.