English Dub Review: Akiba’s Trip Episode 4 “Ham Radio Fighters”

Do you kids know what a ham radio is?

Spoilers Below

The episode starts off with a small narration telling us what we already know so far if you’ve followed the previous three episodes, the episode actually begins when Tomatsu is on top of a tower repairing something to improve the VHF range in an effort to get radio stations from Hokkaido and Okinawa.

Of course the female protagonists Mayonaka, Arisa, Nikawa and Professor Raitu are looking upwards wondering wtf is Tomatsu doing and Nikawa with a forced exposition dump that that this is an antenna designed for “amateur radio” and that Tomatsu has had an antenna in his household since his elementary school years, and as a small call-back to episode three, spending time at those audio places renewed his passion for them.

Mayonaka wonders if he had such a large antenna but before Nikawa can say anything, Raitu expresses how impressed she is and listens to a radio station giving typhoon warning at “Yonaguni Island”. In excitement, Raitu remotely turns the direction of the antenna only for it to knock Tomatsu at the back of his skull and fall only for a rope that he tied around his waist in advance to catch him. Raitu then gives her apology saying “it’s the perfect time for radios today”.

We then cut to Tomatsu at a newspaper stand where he speaks to the main three girls with a walkie talkie seeking out a “target” and in a moment that’s supposed to build up suspense, it turns out that Arisa’s purpose was to grab the last magazine of a particular book at a bargain price before anyone else, however, Tomatsu pointed out there was another location that had it for even cheaper than what she paid for.

Much to Mayonaka’s annoyance, she wonders why they feel the need to use these particular walkie talkies but Tomatsu explains that these can only be designed at a “30 meter radius” in cities. It then cuts to them back at the audio store where Tomatsu suggests that they upgrade their “communication infrastructure” only to be too wow’ed by everything else compared to the three girls.

Tomatsu gets further fixated and proceeds to dance around in excitement which annoys the three girls even further and finally Tomatsu pays attention to these transceiver devices only for Mayonaka to ask “why not just use a smartphone”?

Tomatsu goes further with his speech about how radio waves work stating that the latest technology has to accurately capture good reception and that amateur radio gives a sense of “adventure and curiousity” and how simple waves can be fun when found comparing it to “treasure hunting”.

Tomatsu then states that while smartphones are fun, they’re primarily just a “console” for accessing an environment and in his philosophy, thinks we’ll become “unthinking androids” if they have one which is why he heavily relies on communicating with electronics outside smartphones.

Mayonaka starts to get bored and further annoyed by Tomatsu’s hipster-ish attitude towards favoring this particular technology over smartphones and abuptly out of nowhere, a large shockwave of sounds starts blowing up several shopping districts causing a small panic and when Mayonaka discovers the source of it being a Tower that’s appeared out of nowhere blowing shit up with shockwaves of sound shattering windows of various buildings.

Nikawa says it looks like the “Tokyo Tower” and is further corrected by our villain of the week a tiny science girl “bugged one” who says this is the Akihabara Tower aka “Tower 2” and proclaims that they will retake the dream that was robbed from them at the “Shimada Ward”.

She further reveals that this tower was constructed by Kurobug imp creatures and bugged one waves emitted from the tower designed to destroy all forms of commications devices saying that the power is “far stronger than ordinary radio towers” in an effort to establish dominance.

Of course, Tomatsu isn’t having it and as they run towards the tower to stop them, while the science girl “bugged one” uses a “microwave attack” which burns off their clothing and quickly retreat knowing that if Tomatsu & Mayonaka get completely nude they’ll both die.

As the villain of the week raises hell with her plan to burn the town with radio waves, our main protagonists heal themselves while our protagonists formulate a plan and Raitu comes to the conclusion that whoever is in charge is someone she knows personally and to figure out who the fuck it is, she must seek out a teacher from her college days which leads to Tomatsu the professor knows about bugged ones to begin with and shares a story in flashback form…

The science center within the college was home to researchers around the world an were fully aware of their existence. She was assigned with a lab partner named “Denko Busujima” by their professor/teacher “Yagyuda” who was a leading researcher of all sciences including the paranormal phenomena. Yagyuda assigned Raitu towards her bugged one research to their primary breeding ground within Akihabara in an effort to study the creatures in their natural habitat and the flashback ends.

When Tomatsu asks the relevance to this backstory of hers, Raito answers by saying Bugged ones have the ability to emit a “weak yet destinctive radio waves” and because of this focused on a particular project. Their plan was to get their hands on a large antenna which would help them detect and study the bugged ones faint radio waves which lead to Denko and Yagyuda spending large sums of money straight from their pockets.

They relentlessly tried which lead to Yagyuda being broke and him traveling to Brazil to get a job as a prospector to fund his research and Raitu having no way to contact him given that he’s in a third world country. This gives Tomatsu an idea to use the large antenna he was working on earlier which I guess becomes our Chekov’s gun for this episode.

Raitu explains that Radio waves “travel in a straight line” which would be hard to reach Raitu’s teacher which is why they need to use something in the sky called an “ionosphere” which in a nutshell is a layer in the atmosphere that got ionized by “ultraviolet rays and other things” reflecting radio waves similar to how mirrors can reflect light and for the effectiveness of this plan to work requires a specific weather and time of day which would theoretically reach Brazil.

Raitu suggest’s using morse code which can be used under less than optimal conditions but it all hinges on whether or not Yagyuda even responds back with the first step is sending out a call sign to determine if the radio waves will reach him. Raitu gives Nikawa the order to unplug a “coaxial cable” and plug “number 3” instead while Mayonaka is ordered to grab a box from under the staircase and tells Arisa to check on the rotator with Arisa cartoonishly climbing the antenna really fast. While all of this is going on, Tomatsu at this point is strained due to the energy drinks he’s consumed trying to get a valid working signal while everyone else falls asleep.

When the delivery girl asks why isn’t the place thrown into chaos, Raitu explains that the house is specially reinforced incase of apocolyptic events and out of curiousity she touches the morse code buttons which strangely work at the opposite side to brazil. As they try to determine what the Yagyuda is saying, Tomatsu decipher’s that it says “ALHMK” and out of dumb luck, Raitu further figures it out by the powers of bullshit contrivance that it’s referring to aluminum foil and tells Arisa to order tons of chicken wrapped in foil at this discount restaurant.

We cut back to Denko who basks in her supposed victory of conquering Akiba’s radio waves until a Kurobug warns her of three people wrapped in foil suits making them immune to the radio waves which turn out to be Tomatsu, Arisa and Mayonaka and Raitu shows up with a tank-looking vehicle also wrapped in foil with speakers and reveals in a flashback the “ALHMK” means “Alumi Haku” which is the Japanese word for aluminum foil and explains that the suits they’re wearing are reinforced with 300 millimeters of layered aluminum.

Denko finds a chink in the armor through attacking the eyes that are the only thing exposed to the armor but they quickly turn around taking the shot at another part of the body. And through the power of bullshit cartoon logic, they run up the tower backwards giving a middle finger to gravity and Tomatsu frees her from being posessed by stripping her in her undies which blows up the tower for some fucking reason.

Seconds after the explosion the false news guy who’s accompanied the mysterious woman in the cloak from episode 2 makes up a fake news story saying the disaster was the result of an overzealous ad campaign from a local antenna shop.

Raitu goes to confront her old classmate asking why she did those things and Denko explains that 3 days ago she was on the verge of committing suicide by jumping off a rooftop after not finding a solution to fund the school’s dream of a tower until the cloaked woman with the hat stopped her and with the promise that her “dreams would come true”.

When the cloaked woman touched her hand she was covered in a purple glowing aura which posessed her instantly into a “Bugged one” and given that she has little recollection of what she did while posessed she’s understandably sad that she did horrible things. Raitu assures Denko that she’ll make some calls to clear her name and assures her someone will build a tower in Akihabara but she has to have patience and their scene ends with the two old friends catching up. 🙂

The episode finally comes to an end with Tomatsu making his own radio station called “Electric Mayonaise Studio” with Tomatsu as the Radio DJ doing a small interview with the 3 girls after their “idol’ status from episode 3 while in the background, Taitu looks at a picture of Denko in Brazil with their teacher having the time of her life while the song from episode 3 plays again in the credits.

Overview

It seems like this show is attempting to delve into different hobbies or particular pieces of Japanese subcultures on a weekly basis: episode 1 was figure/toy collecting, episode 2 was gun enthusiasts, episode 3 delved into audiophiles & the idol scene which had some sinister connotations, and now we have amateur Ham-Radio people?

I’m wondering what other type of antagonists they’ll introduce or have a specific theme for. It feels like a Buffy episode where a villain or monster has a very specific metaphor but unlike Buffy‘s episode structure, Akiba’s Trip is either all over the place or painful to watch.

The scene when Tomatsu talks about how amateur radio gives people a sense of “adventure and curiousity” he’s started to sound like a pretentious hipster who gets further bemoaned by the fact nobody within his circle completely acquiesces to his random obsessions. This is often a relatable problem to most socially awkward people in the Otaku scene or those who have an extreme hobby. Sometimes the things we’re fascinated by are often appreciated by only a small few.

If I want to really nitpick what bothered me about this episode the most so here’s the following:

First off 1.If the town is under attack by killer radio waves wouldn’t the businesses be closed for safety?

2. Couldn’t they just fucking afford rolls of aluminum foil in a supermarket instead of ordering tons of cooked restaurant chicken wrapped in foil?

3. How the fuck are are people instantly eating up the bullshit of these fake news broadcasts?

And finally 4. The scene when all the characters are recovering while formulating a plan against the Denko, Tomatsu has his shirt off while they’re treating his injuries, This is where I call bullshit because given that Tomatsu is supposed to be a special species of “bugged one” I’m pretty sure having your shirt off would fucking kill him by now or does it only work if his pants are off too? The plot-holes are becoming canyon-sized at this fucking point!

I’m only showing leniency to this episode because the sex jokes were taken to a tasteful minimum and plus Tomatsu wasn’t abused by the women for the sake of a cheap laugh. Plus, at its core this episode was more Raitu-focused because it was about her past.