境界のRINNE ep 24
Kyoukai no RINNE – 24

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Rinne gets a request, complete with free ramen coupons, to help a possessed ramen chef of a new ramen restaurant. The new restaurant is the talk of the school with its ¥100 ramen as well as some creepy things that have been noticed. When Rinne arrives with Rokumon, Sakura is already there with her friends. They are greeted by “Bijin”, Ageha’s older sister. Ageha arrives and attacks before they all enter the shop, whereupon the see Sabato working like crazy. Tsubasa shows up to try this ramen and goes through a detailed critique of how great it was made and how great it tastes. After Tsubasa leaves, Sabato is forced to work until the end of the day, when Sabato finally passed out.

Rinne communicates with the spirit possessing Sabato and learns that in order to pass on, the spirit wants to make people happy with his ramen. Sabato wakes up and agrees to providing a body for the spirit. However, Sabato uses a Yorishiro Doll for the spirit to possess, and uses ingredients to force customer’s souls out. Even Tsubasa loses his soul. When Ageha tries to convince the spirit to stop, the spirit only cares about making customers happy, which they are, even though they lose their souls. Rinne feigns defeat and runs out, then calls the ramen shop to order 500 bowls for the Damashigami Company. As such, the spirit breaks the Yorishiro Doll attempting to fill the order, so then possesses Sabato again to do it before going to the afterlife. Rinne returns the souls to the people who lost them.

Thoughts/Review:

I do remember this story from the manga, though the anime has expanded it somewhat (if I’m not mistaken).

The intro was all new, with Rokumon taking the appearance of a kitten to score free ramen from the ramen cart owner. That made me laugh.

As to the main story, considering how evil Sabato is, having him possessed and forced to work until he passes out was quite enjoyable. While Sabato may have escaped retribution for a time, in the end, he was forced to do a lot more work, which I enjoyed. It is a shame that the profits from this didn’t go to pay off Sabato’s own debts.

I got a chuckle out of Tsubasa being the ramen critic. However, I couldn’t help but think, “Man, they are needing to pad this episode, aren’t they?” Still, since it was fun, I didn’t mind.

The only weird part about the episode was having Ageha not recognize her sister right away. Everyone else recognized “Bijin” (’cause she doesn’t get a real name, just the “Beautiful Person” Japanese term that’s usually associated with girls) immediately, but Ageha had to have her coin attack break Bijin’s mask before she recognized her own sister, whom she already knew wearing such a mask from earlier. Oh well.

While the story was pretty straight forward and enjoyable for seeing Sabato in pain, it also had the effect on me of making me very hungry for ramen. Seriously, having lived in Japan, I’ve had really good ramen. You can get good stuff outside of Japan, especially when the restaurant in question is run by Japanese people. I may have to take a trip to this really good (but expensive) Japanese place some 30 miles from my house and get a bowl of ramen. Of course, by the time I actually do this, I’ll probably end up wanting the tempura instead. 😉

In the end, a fun story that made me hungry while at the same time appreciating Sabato being forced to work.