ケロロ軍曹 Episode 56
Sgt. Frog anime, 56
Keroro Gunsou episode 56

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Koyuki-chan is training because she now feels that she must defeat Natsumi. Meanwhile at the Hinata residence, Natsumi is practicing her tennis, to which Keroro reveals he sees her weakness. He puts on a blonde, female wig and a dress and mocks Natsumi’s weakness. Koyuki-chan arrives, firing a bunch of shuriken at Natsumi, which Natsumi deflects with her tennis racket. Koyuki-chan challenges Natsumi to a duel, having watched a sports drama where two rival baseball players become great friends. Koyuki-chan’s hope is that by challenging Natsumi, the two of them can become closer friends.

Keroro-chan (my term for the Keroro in drag for this review) tells Koyuki-chan that she should use tennis as the battlefield for her challenge, which Koyuki accepts. However, Keroro-chan has a condition — the loser must get an afro. Natsumi doesn’t like this but Koyuki-chan agrees to it. Keroro-chan puts Natsumi through tough training designed to weaken Natsumi’s moral. As he confides to the announcer, Natsumi doesn’t really have a weakness, he just wants her hair in an afro. The day of the match comes and Koyuki-chan uses her ninja arts to quickly get a lead. However, Natsumi adapts and catches up. After that, no matter what techniques Koyuki-chan uses, Natsumi counters, making things even. Keroro has had enough and summons Dasonu Maso (the Dance Man parody alien), who can make afros happen. He fires his afro beam at Koyuki and Natsumi, only to have Dororo defect it onto Keroro, Moa-chan, Tamama, and Fuyuki. However, the events made Koyuki’s dream of being better friends with Natsumi come true.

Keroro discovers a swallows’ mud nest on the wall outside the front door of the Hinata residence and attempts to take it down with a broom, though without success. Natsumi forbids it, waxing poetic on the swallows. Keroro is pissed about this, but his attempts to “accidentally” knock down the nest by kicking a soccer ball at it fails when Natsumi performs a soccer kick that blocks the shot. The following morning, Keroro plans to knock some baseballs into the nest, but discovers that Natsumi has a small mud nest on her head with an egg in it. Fuyuki does as well. Keroro then finds his whole platoon, save Dororo, have said nest. Dororo points to the giant mud nest on the roof where a giant swallow is. This bird is actually a Subaruwajin, and she made all the nests. The eggs hatch and the alien birds take off with a thank you as Keroro asks that next time, he be given a nest for his head as well.

Thoughts/Review: I don’t know why, but the afro jokes amuse me for some reason. I think it goes back to my time in Japan when Japanese youth were big into the high top fade. Then again, there’s just something funny about the way this episode had Keroro obsess over Natsumi being given an afro.

While this half of the episode appeared to be a parody of Prince of Tennis, I’ve no clue if Keroro was supposed to be a parody female character or not. Either way, “Keroro-chan” was funny to me with the accent and drag outfit.

The second story, which came from a manga, actually hit closer to home for me. As I recently blogged about on my personal blog, I’ve had to deal with swallows and their nests. *lol* So I understood Keroro’s “need” to take down the swallows nest when he found it. ^_^

Anyway, a fun episode all around despite weak animation.