Keroro Gunsou Episode 124
ケロロ軍曹/Sgt. Frog Anime Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Keroro sees a report about the recovery of a cargo pod on Planet Doinaka. As such, Keroro gets the platoon on a ship to head there immediately. Giroro doesn’t understand why, so Keroro has to remind him about the Viper pirate and stolen cargo pod. As children, he, Giroro, and Dororo learned of the pirate attack. As such, Keroro wants them to get the treasure. The best way to do it is to take the Galaxy Express, which Giroro is a fan of (member #99999999).

The trio sneak on the space train and hide in the loo. However, when they leave to try to get some food, the robot conductor discovers them. They hide with an elderly, Viper passenger. When he learns they are going to Doinaka, he gives them tickets to the place and a worn paper with numbers on it, since he will never get to go. The trio eventually arrive at Doinaka. To their surprise, the planet seems deserted.

After exploring for a day, eventually the group decide to give up on finding the pirate treasure. Keroro orders Dororo to leave behind the “nasty” instant ramen cup and they return to the station. It is there they discover Keroro’s paper is actually the station’s timetable. The next passenger train won’t arrive for three years. Keroro sends the reluctant Dororo back to the woods to get the discarded ramen.

An unmanned cargo train arrives for refuel. Keroro and Giroro race back to Dororo, who’s fallen into a hole with a space Cerberus. After rescuing him, the trio make it back to the train. Giroro sacrifices his membership card to get Dororo on the train. Back in the present, the trio are on a now lively Doinaka. Dororo looks for the card, but Giroro stops him.

Thoughts/Review:

We get a single story in Keroro Gunsou Episode 124. I did like the flashback depicting Keroro, Giroro, and Dororo on a summer adventure as kids. I would say it was a nice bit of character work, but in fact, I’m pretty sure that at the end of the day, it won’t mean anything. In fact, we already knew these guys were friends as children. One of the ongoing jokes is Dororo’s childhood trauma, and that plays out here too. So in fact, it isn’t a nice bit of character work.

However, for a series that has to maintain the status quo at all costs, I did find the episode to be kinda fun. It was the kind of thing boys might dream of doing. And on a tiny scale, it was something boys would do within a neighborhood.

What didn’t make sense was why Keroro felt the need to return to Doinaka. He’d already seen that the cargo “treasure” had been found. But, I guess the writers wanted some pretext to tell this flashback.

Finally, I loved the parody nod to Galaxy Express. We saw the typical Space Battleship Yamato reference at the start of the episode. I did not recall one for Galaxy Express before. However, I see that in episode 109, the series got a parody nod there as well.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Keroro Gunsou Episode 124 was an enjoyable, flashback episode that had a real feeling of boys being boys in the summer.