Jigoku Sensei Nu~be~ Ep 7 | Thoughts

Episode Highlights

• Sanma, the infamous loud mouth Japanese television host, is the first big name guest star to appear in this drama. Though, what difference does it make when he’s wearing a knock off Guy Fawkes mask for 99% of his screen time.
• ” How were you able to break the seal?! ” / ” That…!!! I have absolutely no idea. “
• Makoto must be an Olympian with all the running he does in this episode in such little time… Or everything is just next door to each other.
• Nice goth makeup on the judgement versions of Nube’s dear ones. Who knew black lipstick went so well?
• I knew Izuna and Ritsuko-sensei had an idea where Nube lived. I didn’t know all of Tokyo knew where the guy lived though.

Episode 7 puts Nube in a pinch. Well, not a pinch… more like a life and death situation. Well, not really. It’s more like if Nube doesn’t wake up, he’s will die. An unexpected encounter with a masked man in a dark alleyway causes Nube to be possessed by the demon serial killer, the Kaijin Aka Manto (aka A). Unable to awaken from the nightmare, Nube makes an attempt to exorcise the demon within his own dream… but A seals his supernatural abilities and turns him into a regular human (with a fluffy kitty paw instead of a dangerous claw). The demon A gives Nube three questions to answer, each an choice, in which either answer will result in his ultimate demise.

Majority of this episode is spent watching Nube squrim in pain with charms attached to his face with Yukime begging everyone that comes over to Nube’s place to save his life. Considering that the girl (woman?) is a forest demon, I’m surprised she had absolutely no powers to step in and save Nube’s life. It seems like every other demon out there can do so much more than she. All Yukime can do is just freeze things it seems. That aside, dream!Nube spends most of his screen time just pensively staring down A and his twisted images of his beloveds. Considering these episodes are pretty much filmed two weeks before the air date, it looks like this episode was written to give Maruyama Ryuhei time to dedicate himself to his activities in Kanjani8, since the group is on tour at the moment.

Not that there’s anything wrong with it… but considering that the original story in the manga involves A attacking the students and Nube saving the day (yet again), it just makes it seems as if writing was more or less done to accommodate Maruyama’s schedule than stay true to the source. Then again, Nube hasn’t been necessarily true to the source material at all. So maybe I’m just imagining things.

I don’t know why, but there were a lot of things in this episode I felt were not necessary and did nothing to advance to plot other than to say XX actor got XX screentime meeting the requirements of their contract. For instance, Nube gets summoned by Baki, the demon contained in his left hand. The demon then gives Nube a hypothetical situation that does nothing to help the situation other than to point out that the sky is blue, or in this case: Everyone Loves Nube. This scene would not have bothered me so much had I known why was his Demon Hand able to summon him out of his so called nightmare.

And what the hell was he doing in that period that he got sucked out of his deadly nightmare. What about A? Did he just decide to wait for Nube’s return? Scratch his butt? Check his email?

Eventually Tamano-sensei and Jikuu, Nube’s father, save his life by holding off A and breaking the seal, respectively. A the Strange Caped Man, uneventfully is destroyed within thirty seconds once Nube’s gets his powers back and the remainder of the episode is spent with Tamamo finally realizing what human’s treasure so much, the bonds between them. Then Jikuu coughs up some blood, mumbling how there’s no time. Whatever his mission is, I hope we find out soon. Also, does this guy ever sleep? He just seems to pop up anywhere with a smoke machine following him.

With this filler episode officially over, we find out that Yamada Ryosuke of Hey Say Jump! is to make a guest appearance in the next episode as Baki’s brother. There’s also a lot of references to it being the final chapter which leaves me kind of on the iffy side. Yamada Ryosuke… its like… yeah. Why. Nothing else is really revealed in the preview since half of it was dedicated to Yamada blabbering on about how it’s so cool to play Baki’s brother.

This episode was pretty lack luster. Zero character development and little-to-none revelations leaves left to be desired. Maybe next week’s episode will be more exciting. I wanna know why Jikuu is such an ass and why is he back in town… Because, other than that old man’s mysterious nature, Nu~be~ seriously does not have an overarching storyline at all… and for a drama, that’s, well, a pretty important element to have.