English Dub Review: The Vampire Dies in No Time “The Man’s Name Is Handa”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

A strangely sexual creature visits Ronaldo and Draluc in hopes of being cured by them. They aren’t able to find a solution though, not even when Draluc tries taking his shirt off. Later on, a delivery from Autumn Books turns out to be full of evil vampire vegetables, forcing Ronaldo to resort to some drastic measures in order to restore order in the kitchen. Finally, a visit from the Vampire Control Division takes an unexpected turn when a guy named Handa shows up in place of Hinaichi.

Our Take:

The Vampire Dies in No Time may have been renewed for a second season this week, but in English dub land we’re still working our way through the first season. This week, the fourth episode is out, and it’s a doozy. The Man’s Name Is Handa opens with one of the weirdest segments the show has done so far, pads out the middle with a pretty humdrum plot, and then finishes off with one of the most fun gags the show has ever presented.

That first segment really is strange. The show has gone into oddly sexual territory before, like with the plant-based vampire from a couple weeks back, but this time around it’s taken to another level. A strange creature visits the Ronaldo Vampire Hunter Agency and begs for help. He’s a vampire, y’see, and every time he gets turned on he transforms into unsettlingly sexual shapes. The whole premise of the scene is basically just to make extended jokes about erections (Ronaldo uses the term ‘brain-boner’). There’s even a joke that tries to compare John the armadillo to boobs? It’s not really very funny, but it’s definitely more memorable than the middle segment.

Vampiric vegetables takeover in the middle third of the episode. Apparently Autumn Books’s goal in life is merely to make Ronaldo’s life even more difficult, because they send him a bunch of produce that happened to be turned into vampires… yes, apparently produce can become the undead. It’s a cute joke at first, but Ronaldo’s increasingly obnoxious overreactions quickly lose their charm and after a couple minutes I was ready to move on to the next bit.

Luckily, the last segment of the episode is the best one by far. The fact that the staff chose this one to name the episode after is no coincidence. Ronaldo and Draluc are going about their day as usual, expecting a visit from Hinaichi to checkup on Draluc. But instead of the pint-sized protector of the people, a man named Handa arrives at their door. He’s not really a very fun character himself, but his dynamic with Draluc becomes pretty silly and the two of them have a lot of hilarious hijinks as they try to discover Ronaldo’s secret shame without letting him find out about what they’re up to. The best gag of the episode comes in this segment, as Handa begins to narrate about his problems with Ronaldo, saying that he has to avenge his mother. But she’s not dead; she’s just a huge Ronaldo fan. The best comedy happens when you weren’t expecting the joke, and that’s the case here. The fact that it sets up the ending, where the discovery is a bunch of letters his mother wrote to Ronaldo, is a perfect way to end things.

The Man’s Name Is Handa isn’t a great episode by any means, but I think at this point in the series it’s probably good enough to make it into my top couple episodes. It had a little monotony, a little shock value, and a good amount of humor (not in that order). At this point, I think it’s becoming clear to me that there are certain story beats that the show is intent on exploring (one of them being the weirdly sexual metaphors), but I hope the series will try to prioritize things that are actually funny rather than just inserting things for the outrageousness of it.