English Dub Review: Mission: Yozakura Family “Kengo; Shinzo”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Taiyo bonds with and learns more from disguise expert Kengo and weapons expert Shinzo.

OUR TAKE

Well, just like I expected, we’re now onto episodes that give us time to focus on one particular character of the group and give them a little spotlight. And it turns out we’re actually doing that with two characters because this episode splits itself into two segments for two of them! Makes sense considering that these are based on individual manga chapters and usually adapt more than one at a time. Unless it’s a situation like One Piece where sometimes they have to adapt LESS than one at a time, but we don’t have that problem here. These are the early EARLY stages of the story, so they can afford to mess around like this as they explore the cast and get use to learn more about the show’s world. Not a whole lot about the latter, since this is still basically the regular world just with heightened spy stuff going on, but each segment does present some scenario that is better for exploring stuff about each individual character. Kengo’s half of the episode takes place mostly around the Yozakura house, which best goes into how his disguises will help Taiyo blend in, while shedding light on his commitment to protecting Mutsumi, while Shinzo is apparently pretty shy but knows how to arm himself pretty well in his Oscar the Grouch trash can armor.

As for how I feel about the characters so far, they’re perfectly fine for the roles they’re made for in the family dynamic. Kengo’s own expression rarely changes, but he’s still shown to have some hidden emotional layers beneath his usual smirk and is probably going to be the source of a lot of comedy with his disguises. As for Shinzo, it’s also pretty funny that they one who is armed to the teeth is also the one with social anxiety…or rather, it’s funny in this context because in the real world those two things are sadly often connected. Anyway, as far as proper introductions to these characters goes, this is a pretty good way to do that. They’ve done plenty to make the Yozakura family overall seem pretty interesting, so I’m plenty curious about what we’ll learn as we get to know each family member episode by episode. Next week, however, looks like it will put the group against their first major threat, a detective! I guess we’ll see where that takes us as the family gets another target to aim and fire at.