While the first ep of Marriagetoxin wasn’t exactly tame, this one was way out there where the buses don’t run. I remain kind of bemused at Bones adapting it. It seems like the sort of weird, quirky series you’d see get a one and done at a lesser studio and find a niche audience. If you look at Bones’ recent track record (which differs from their non-recent mainly in producing far fewer original series) there aren’t really any similar examples I can think of. I’m fine with it – what action scenes there are certainly look good. It’s just a bit odd.
The oddball premise this time finds Kinosaki taking Gero to an art exhibit on a yacht to practice for real dates. Which hey, he obviously needs that. The artist for many of the works is one Shiratori-san, who shows up at the event with his wife and is mobbed by adoring young fans. This is fun in a random way but the only real relevance seems to be as example to Gero about how married couples depend on each other. It seems like the reason Kinosaki chose this venue, in fact, is that he’s a fan of Shiratori himself.
Kinosaki’s idea for Hikaru to meet the chicks is to use his powers for good. Instead of assassinating do rescues and such. And soon he’s presented an opportunity when an art thief named Himesaka steals a painting called “My Girl, She’s Like the Sun, Yeah?” the creeper in charge of the exhibition stole (by some means, anyway) from the man whose wife was depicted in it – and he in turn kidnaps her. Himesaka fancies herself something of a Robin Hood, liberating paintings and returning them to their rightful owners. And by the way, what was up with those hats the security guys were wearing?
Normally this sort of job – Hikaru finds out about it when Kinosaki shows him how to use the dark web – would pay far too poorly for a Master such as Gero-san. But it’s for love. Kinosaki actually accompanies him on the mission, which seems to be going pretty smoothly and sees the creeper get his arm cut off in censored fashion (or was that part of his hallucination?) until Ushio the Water Master shows up. She (I assume) and Hikaru go at if for a bit and then she whips out her business card and tries to convince Gero to settle things amicably so that both sides can profit.
This battle is fun, and Bones-y through and through. I’m not quite sure all this adds up to anything really meaningful, though. I mean Hikaru is likable enough and his desire for a normal life is certainly easy to identify with, and Mei is quite a hoot. But at the point I’m finding Marriagetoxin pretty disconnected as an actual story. I would imagine the chemistry between Gero and Kinosaki (who seems to be the one he should really end up with) is the best hope to keep things engaging over the long haul, but we’ll see.
