ケロロ軍曹 Episode 41
(Sgt. Frog 41)

SPOILER Summary: Keroro and Natsumi get in an argument over whether the milk is poured into the cup first or last for Milk Tea. To settle things, Keroro produces a board game, looking somewhat like the Game of Life. Rather than be just a board game, Natsumi, Fuyuki, and Keroro are transported into the board where they will play the game (Moa, Kururu, and Tamama are waiting for them). Rolling a giant dice, the square they land on will have a text which will become reality. So Fuyiki lands on squares that transports him to occult places around Earth. Tamama lands on squares that produce mounds of deserts for him to eat. Keroro lands on squares that get him what he wants. Finally, Natsumi lands on squares that take her where she wants to go, only with a negative twist that forces her to do things like bull fight.

The game is invented by Kururu and its real name is Pekopon Invasion Game of Life DX. Keroro is two squares from the goal, which if he reaches, will mean a successful invasion of Earth. If the humans win, the get ramen. Keroro rolls a 1 which produces Moa’s father, the Lord of Terror. Together with Moa, they immediately begin to try to destroy the Earth despite Keroro’s objection. Meanwhile in the Hinata house, Giroro sees the game and knows Keroro is doing something stupid, so he kicks the game, knocking everyone out of the game and preventing the invasion of Earth.

Dororo is observing Kogoro and Lavie as they walk down the street and sees how people acknowledge Kogoro’s presence, even if they move away from him. As such, Dororo decides to consult with Kogoro about this and while Kogoro can’t remember Dororo’s name, he does help, causing Dororo to get a fire of determination. As such, Dororo takes this to the platoon, who upon seeing his determination, agree to follow him for intensive training. At school, Koyuki-chan inquires of Natsumi about the changes she’s seen in Dororo, which leads Natsumi to reveal that Keroro has even changed, working very hard on his cleaning. Koyuki, Natsumi, and Fuyuki go to check on things and arrive in time to see Kogoro arrive to challenge the platoon. The platoon puts to use their new training, but the forget about Dororo, even though he’d just saved their lives.

Thoughts: I’ve seen the Game of Life be parodied a few times in different titles, the first being an early volume of Ah! My Goddess. I guess the game is more popular in Japan that I would have thought.

As to the episode itself, it is the standard fluff-fare. I want to say that the first story was a loose adaptation of a manga story. The second was new to me, but I’m kind of tired of the “Dororo is the forgotten member” jokes that creep up. For a while, I thought that Koyuki wouldn’t be in this episode, and that would have bothered me. Indeed, Dororo has Koyuki so really, he isn’t a forgotten person. Besides, Ninja “live in the shadows” as it were. I guess his desire to be noticed is supposed to be funny, but I didn’t laugh.