ケロロ軍曹 Episode 65
Sgt. Frog anime, 65
Keroro Gunsou episode 65

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Keroro is watching the climactic episode of Admiral Geroro when the TV signal is interrupted. Kururu produces his latest invention, the Pan Space 966 Tuner (966=Kururu) to fix the problem. However, instead of his favorite anime, they receive a broadcast about an alien criminal named 303 who’s caused destruction at a lot of planets and is known to eat a ton as he makes his way to Earth. Admiral Geroro returns to the TV, but the episode is over. Keroro is frustrated by this and wonders if his video tape managed to record the broadcast. It did not. When Keroro is presented with the idea of 303 destroying Gunpla, he springs into action and founds the 7th District Division. Keroro assigns the platoon new names, including Fuyuki and sends them out (the Keron’s in human suits) to investigate.

The platoon discovers that 303 is on Earth because various food joints are suddenly out of food. Fuyuki notices a plastic ring at the scene of one of the crimes. When the platoon returns home, each have found a similar plastic ring at various crime scenes. The rings are part of a Gunpla, so Keroro is the immediate suspect. He denies everything under interrogation but when Moa arrives with a bowl of katsudon, he’s not hungry. However, a small alien emerges from Keroro and eats the katsudon. It is 303 so Space Police Officer Poyon-chan appears to make the arrest. Apparently, Keroro knew nothing about having been taken over by 303 nor of his actions while possessed but he is forced to pay for all the food 303 consumed.

It is Tanabata time in Japan, so Tamama and Momoka are writing their wishes on paper to be hung up. A UFO (mecha suit) crashes and a cute Keron emerges named Karara. Tamama is not happy that such a cute character is there to possibly replace him, but since Karara wants to join the platoon and Keroro has told Tamama to handle it, Tamama decides he knows just what to do. He takes Karara to the firing range and launches a Tamama Impact to show Karara what is expected of the alien. Karara is so impressed by this, Karara begins addressing Tamama as “Tama-nii” (short for Tamama-niichan). This causes Tamama to lighten up a bit and accept Karara into the platoon as a bottom-ranking soldier.

As Tamama takes Karara to various parts of the base, Karara ends up innocently destroying Keroro’s Admiral Geroro tape, deleting Kururu’s data on a new weapon, and destroying Giroro’s favorite weapon. The three of them are furious which leads Keroro to assign Kururu to take care of the matter. As such, Kururu places Karara into a monstrous maze where Karara’s fears will come to life. That fear is Karara’s father. Tamama witnesses this and decides to help Karara. He learns that Karara’s fears were from taking the mecha suit that belongs to Karara’s father. Tamama promises that Kururu will fix the suit and gets Karara out. Kururu comes through and even makes improvements to the mecha suit. After Karara leaves, the wish Karara writes reveals Karara is a girl and that she wants to marry Tamama. Tamama can’t believe this since he’s only interested in Keroro.

Thoughts/Review: Now that I’ve watched several episodes of Space Battleship Yamato, it seems to me that the parody anime Admiral Geroro is based off of that anime. The Admiral Geroro character looks a lot like Captain Okita, only in Keron form. The ramen shop owner in this episode looked a lot like Sado-sensei from Yamato as well. Not surprising really considering that Yamato is one of the foundation titles for today’s anime. Things like this is exactly why I am keen on watching classic anime titles to increase my anime education.

There is a new eye-catch with this episode, which is a nice change from the old one (Keroro on a swing now rather than emerging from the water).

As to the stories, I’m not sure what detective show may have been parodied, but it is an amusing story. I’ve got to make katsudon at some point. For the 2nd story, I figured Karara was a girl from the start. Kururu’s “I’m pissed” moment made me laugh because we’ve never seen him like that. Of course even ticked, Kururu managed his trademark laugh.

So, another fun episode. The series has been hit-or-miss for me a lot of the time, but recently, I think the episodes have been pretty enjoyable.