ケロロ軍曹 Episode 57
Sgt. Frog anime, 57
Keroro Gunsou episode 57

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

The younger brother of the Viper alien that Keroro’s platoon defeated is on Earth for revenge. He kidnaps Keroro from a Java Riser event (disguised as one of the stage villains). He nabs Giroro with a Natsumi look-alike. He takes Tamama with a fake cookie-candy house. Then he snares Kururu with a package trap that says, “Do not open.” The Viper then sends a message to Dororo, showing him his captives and challenging him to come to the Viper’s lair. Dororo leaves Koyuki and makes his way to the den, where he defeats the first two traps laid for him. However, the Viper has a music box that Keroro destroyed when they were kids and Dororo is in trauma (Keroro seeing this begins to confess to all sorts of misdeeds). However, Koyuki arrives and snaps Dororo back to reality. Dororo defeats the Viper, who comes back in giant form. Keroro uses a Flash Spoon to make himself even bigger, meaning the Keroro Platoon wins.

With Keroro still huge, he’s taken to the private island owned by the Nishizawa Group. Nishizawa and Fuyuki are alone looking at the ocean when Keroro emerges with a ton of food. Keroro plans to relax, but he can’t do any of his favorite things because he’s a giant. Giroro gets angry with Keroro’s tantrum but Keroro swears he has a plan and it involves a Godzilla parody with Keroro also becoming a giant in monster costume. Keroro will battle Giroro, win, and thus win the hearts of the children. However, they soon discover that they don’t have the Flash Spoon. Instead, it is in the kitchen where a cuttlefish touches it and becomes a giant, capturing Keroro. Moa uses the spoon to become a giant and is captured. Tamama gets jealous, becomes a giant, and gets captured. Fukuki does the same, so Nishizawa becomes a giant to defeat the cuttlefish. The spoon goes around to a crab and a turtle as well as to Paul, Giroro, Aki-san, Koyuki, & Kururu. Dororo tries to use it, but the spoon is out of battery power and thus he’s the only one normal sized as everyone else feasts around a giant nabe pot.

Thoughts/Review:

Well, we get two tokusatsu (“special effects” live-action titles) parodies. The first one is the Super Sentai tokusatsu (ie: Power Rangers) and the second one being the daikaiju ( giant monster) tokusatsu parody (ie: Godzilla). I think the giant monster story ended up going overboard because the moment Tamama went for the Flash Spoon, I figured that everyone would end up becoming a giant except for Dororo. The writers seem to think it is funny having Dororo be the odd man out most of the time, but I’m not laughing. Maybe in Japan, people are splitting their sides in laughter at Dororo’s “trauma.”