境界のRINNE ep 34
Kyoukai no RINNE 34

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Rinne discovers his normal Shinigami Scythe repair person has raised prices. A pink-haired, rabbit-eared girl (Raito) “attacks” him, talks about the damage, then offers him a free repair job at her shop, Mikazukido. Arriving at their forge shop, Rinne is not impressed despite Raito’s claim of being in business for four generations. Her twin, younger brother (also with rabbit ears) Refuto handles the actual work while she does marketing. After they took over the shop, they lost business as old customers didn’t trust someone so young doing the work. Rinne gives them a chance since the sullen Refuto has a special ability he can add to the scythe. Rinne discovers that the modified scythe does work much faster than it used to, but results in him taking a beating.

Rinne returns the scythe to the store to have it returned to normal, where Refuto is shocked to learn the ability he gave to Rinne’s scythe was actually discontinued. Refuto puts other abilities on the scythe for free, but each one has a negative consequence. Once Rinne’s scythe is returned to normal, Raito attempts to sell him a special wax for dirty spirits. Amazingly, an outbreak of dirty, rugby shirt spirits happens, forcing Rinne to consider their offer. He talks Raito down to ¥300 for several jars and other items, then discovers that she was responsible for the outbreak. Once the outbreak is resolved, Rinne discovers he’s still been had since he has no need for the other jars he bought. Meanwhile, Raito and Refuto have another failed product attempt.

Thoughts/Review:

This is an episode that could have been tedious, but fortunately, it turned out to be pretty fun.

Raito and Refuto could so easily become like Sabato in how they try to con people, but in their case, they don’t get that bad because they genuinely believe they have a good product or service they can sell and make money off of. It is just their marketing techniques are dodgy. 😉

The other thing that makes these twins so fun is that they are so desperate to build their business, they can be talked into doing things for free or for a massive discount. Heck, they even allow full returns.

That being said, these are characters that will quickly become one trick ponies that are then boring and tedious. If Takahashi-sensei ever allowed her characters to actually grow (being brief moments, after which they revert to type), then I would love seeing more of Raito and Refuto.

In the end, this was a pretty fun episode, with a fair amount of slapstick, and a couple of new characters, desperate to try to build a business by any means necessary.