Nabari no Ou - Episode 7

The shifting sands of quality that seems to occur between each episode of Nabari no Ou continue again as of episode seven, as once again we find ourselves with an instalment that is little more than setting the scene for what should be a far more action-packed episode eight.

With the race to grab all of the various ninja villages kinjutsu scrolls now public knowledge in the world of Nabari, our intrepid bunch of good guys find themselves being coerced into use as little more than 'guns for hire', put to the task of assassinating an rather unsavoury businessman who goes by the rather unlikely surname of 'Frosty'. Rather than focus his attentions on breakfast cereal or driving an ice cream van, the subject of all this attention creates chemicals, abuses third world countries, experiments on humans and so forth. Thus, the team (minus Raimei, who has to disappear to handle some business of her own) set out to do their work while Mr. Frosty (sorry, I can't even type that with a straight face) is visiting Japan from his native country.

Yes, there's a little more to this episode's plot than explaining this assassination scenario, but not by much. We do however get some ever-entertaining moments of Rokujo using his knack for emotional blackmail, and some predictably terrible attempts to speak English to denote Mr. Frosty's western roots. Please, anime writers and voice actors, if you're going to have an English speaking character either find someone English to play the part or just make them speak Japanese and hope we won't question it. I know it probably isn't such a big deal to any Japanese watching as us Western types, but it always grates with me.

So, twenty-five minutes later, all we've really learned is - Wait for the next episode when the good stuff will likely start again. It's a good job that Nabari no Ou at its best has been fantastic in earlier instalments, as when we get to these scene-setting episodes it really does tend to drag.