ケロロ軍曹 Episode 44
(Sgt. Frog 44)
Keroro Gunsou 44

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Kururu wants some data on Kerons vs Earthlings when it comes to who is better at sports. Keroro is happy to accept but since he defeated Natsumi in swimming, he challenges Fuyuki, figuring for an easy win. The Nishizawa Winter Sports Center is chosen to hold Olympic-styled winter games. During the downhill skiing, Keroro loses due to a mysterious object falling out of the sky and smashing him. During the ski jump, Fuyuki is blown back by a mysterious win and loses. During the curling event, Fuyuki’s team loses due to gum suddenly appearing on the ice. During the bobsled event, Keroro’s sled comes apart. During the hockey match, the puck breaks on Keroro, causing him to lose. During the figure skating, the ice suddenly breaks so that now there’s a giant hole, causing Keroro to lose.

During the cross-country skiing, an avalanche causes both to lose and accuse the other of cheating and settle on a final match, the loser having to wear five afros. So Keroro and Fuyuki are ice fishing when a blizzard comes up. The match continues and Keroro catches what appears to be a monster fish, only to have an explosion under the ice cause Keroro to be in the water. Since his feet are frozen, Keroro can’t swim and if Fuyuki rescues him, he forfeits the match. Fuyuki decides to rescue Keroro because of their friendship, but needs to be rescued himself as he can’t swim. Everyone returns home, suspecting Kururu of being behind all the strange events to collect data. However, waiting for them at home is a drenched Aki-san along with a drenched Kururu, who’s on his face.

Just after Kururu sent everyone out to the winter games, Aki-san comes home on her motorcycle. Kururu has a surprise for her — a giant mecha which looks like her, named AK966. Kururu wants Aki-san to test it, which she’s happy to do. Kururu does his typical laugh at her eagerness, but loses it when Aki-san renames it in English as “Autumn-H” (“Aki” is Japanese for “autumn” and “H” is for “Hinata”). Aki-san drives her bike into the slot for it in the robot’s head and she’s off with Kururu following in his own mecha, their anti-barrier devices keeping them from being seen. Aki-san is keen to try out everything and the rocket punch is first, causing the robot’s fist to fly off. One flies out and smashes into Keroro as he and Fuyuki are doing the downhill skiing. Thus the mystery of what happened there is solved.

And so it goes, with Aki-san trying different things before Autumn-H goes out of control. Kururu tries many things to capture the robot but fails. All of their activities are the direct cause of the various mysterious events and accidents at the winter sports event. Finally, Kururu and Aki-san are in his craft, the AK966 set to self destruct. Because the anti-barrier is broken on Kururu’s craft, they head for the ice, breaking through to the water where they are snagged by Keroro’s ice fishing line. Trying to escape, Aki-san presses a button which fires a torpedo that explodes when hitting the ice (the final accident). The explosion damages the craft and it takes water, so that when they finally arrive at the underground pool under the Hinata residence, both are soaked. Aki-san manages to get Kururu up to the house’s entry way just as her children and the aliens return home.

Thoughts/Review:

Initially, the first story was enjoyable, but nothing really special as I thought that Kururu was just being a jerk. However, the second story having Aki-san and Kururu accidentally being the cause of all the problems at the winter games amused me greatly. I didn’t think it would, but each reveal of the cause of a problem for Fuyuki or Keroro made me chuckle. So my hat is off to the writers for this clever bit of storytelling. ^_^