ケロロ軍曹 Episode 72
Sgt. Frog anime, 72
Keroro Gunsou episode 72

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Famous alien chefs Minemine and Gumogumo challenge Keroro to a cooking competition. If they win, they get the Keron base. If they lose, they will give him a brand new (counter top) dish washer known as Super Clean. Keroro accepts and summons Natsumi, Fuyuki, Koyuki, and the platoon to assist him, their efforts to be judged by the Space Taste King. Bringing down some ingredients, Natsumi is tasked with making the first dish, but when Giroro uses a grenade rather than a knife on the meat, most of the ingredients are lost. Natsumi loses. Keroro goes through his entire crew but everyone loses. Aki-san arrives to participate and makes a leftover stew, but that loses too. However, because the alien chefs see how Aki-san got everyone to work together, they don’t take the base and give them the dishwasher, which actually has a multi-tongued alien inside to do the work.

As Tamama and Dororo look for a specific insect, tons of beetles start showing up at the Hinata home, which freaks Fuyuki out. Some super beetles show up to challenge Tamama, having known him from his battle with the insect at Grandma Hinata’s place. Tamama senses the bugs, so he and Dororo return to the Hinata home. Tamama has a battle with the lead bug and while he loses, he’s happy and the insects promise to return to challenge their rival again.

Thoughts/Review:

The first story’s parody of cooking competitions was fun, but very predictable. I even had a feeling that Aki-san’s dish at the end would fail and it did. That said, the Japanese concept of a dish washer always seems to be a counter top model. I’m not even sure the Japanese would know what to do with an American-styled dishwasher.

Sadly, the second story didn’t do anything for me. I remember the original story of Tamama fighting the big insect, but this was just too much for me. It was really like an exercise in killing time without doing anything (including having any humor).