English Dub Review: URAHARA “Fried Shrimp Runaway”

An evil fried shrimp hops after our heroines.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Episode 11 begins with Rito, Mari, and Kotoko accepting Misa’s truth – they have been living in their own fantasy world for pretty much the entire show. Misa wants to help them to escape the bubble, but Ebifuruya has other ideas.

The evil Scooper turned shrimp chases the gang through the imaginary streets of Harajuku, eventually transforming into a giant. Can Misa come through for her new human friends and save the day?

Our Take:

Oddly enough, this episode seemed like more of a recap episode than the previous one. A large portion of the beginning is spent rehashing the reveal from last week about the entire world being created by the imaginations of the girls. While it makes sense that they would still be reeling from this revelation, viewers have had time to digest it, and I would’ve appreciated the show picking up the pace there.

It was nice to see Misa make a solid stand against Ebifuruya (and even her own Scooper-upbringing), but the entire chase sequence lacked a proper sense of dread to me. How could the athletic human girls not manage to outrun a small fried shrimp who literally has to hop everywhere?

URAHARA only has one episode left. The show has delivered with some interesting developments over the past 11 episodes, but going into the finale, most of the plot seems to have been unraveled. Hopefully, it can stick the landing with its unique animation and some well-executed character arc wrap-ups.