I’ve made note of the fact that weekends are crazy busy anime-wise this season. All it took was for a misspelled stream label (one “O” in Hoozuki) for me to completely whiff on Hoozuki no Reitetsu last weekend.  By the time I’d noticed something wasn’t right it was around Wednesday, and at that point I was hip deep in alligators at work and it just seemed easier to do a twofer when 07 came out.  And here we are.

Episode 6 definitely has an animal theme – especially foxes, as the kitsune youkai Gon (no sign of Killua) is the central focus of both chapters.  First off, we have a dine and dash at the Fox Cafe in Hell – except it’s sort of a misunderstanding.  Turns out that it was Nurarihyon, who anime fans may know for a different reason, but it folklorically a youkai who slips into your house, drinks your tea and chills out, and slips away.  I’m not sure where the whole catfish side of the story comes from (if that’s part of the legend I haven’t seen it) but it makes for an amusingly comical contrast with the likes of Gon and Hoozuki-sama.

The idea of trying to give Nurarihyon a makeover is genius, if predictably disastrous.  The larger issue for Gon is that his boss Daji-sama has threatened all sorts of unspeakable torture if the culprit (who actually left the money under the register when he was unable to get an employee’s attention) isn’t apprehended.  Gon is having rather a bad time of it altogether with Daji, who seems to have taken the Nurarihyon incident as a reminder that Gon generally isn’t very good at his job.  Her new ultimatum – bring me a snake to eat (they’re especially delicious when they’ve just swallowed a human) and increase your sales, or I’ll eat you instead.

Gon has mostly played straight man to Koban up to now, but he’s an interesting fellow in his own right.  His default mode is the scam, not actual work, so when his only option for procuring a snake seems to be working for a week in Fiery Fox Hell for Hoozuki, that doesn’t work out so well – he ends up playing shogi with the damned.  Fortunately an angry Daji is scary enough to frighten the damned sufficiently so that Hoouzki considers the contract fulfilled.

That brings us to Episode 7, and I notice a definite trend developing here.  Hoozuki no Reitetsu is relying on full-episode storylines lately, after almost never having done so in the first two seasons.  Or at the very least, episodes stitched together by a common thread surrounding a specific supporting character or characters.  This time it’s Satan and Beelzebub with their first visit in a good while, and it’s always great to hear Tessyo Genda and Konishi Katsuyuki in full-on comic roles.  From their very first visit these two have been a vehicle for Hoozuki no Reitetsu to hilariously (if rather archly) comment on cultural differences between the West and Japan.

The game center stuff is some of the funniest material of the season, with Satan (who’s a bit of a Japanophile to say the least) being a devotee of old-school dating sims and Kan showing off his moves at “Dance Dance Revolution”.  Karashi is naturally brilliant at what looks like a rock version of “Taiko no Tatsujin” (I don’t spend a lot of time in arcades, in case that wasn’t obvious) and Hoouzki is good at pretty much everything (especially whack-a-mole-with-a-cursed-spiked-club).  Eventually Satan challenges Hoouzki to a fighting game based off the Choujuu-giga (which is a hilarious idea itself if you think about it), where he naturally (and literally) pulls no punches.  This leads Beelzebub to wonder how Hoozuki managed to get ahead in the Japanese corporate underworld.

The visit to the mechanical realm of King Henjo (who Lilith compares to Steve Jobs) is a visual marvel, plain and simple.  It’s one of those stunningly beautiful and imaginative dreamscapes that Hoozuki no Reitetsu produces from time to time, a little bit of Lang and Verne and Tezuka with an Eguchi twist.  There Henjo’s ancient and spectacularly decrepit chief of staff has built a mechanical doll based on his granddaughter to assist in judging the deceased, with an eye towards eventually having her assume the entire role of chief of staff.  Beelzubub is naturally (and reluctantly) chosen to play the role of the deceased so she can demonstrate her skills, and “Memeko” proves that you should never judge cursed dolls based on first impressions.