Handyman Saitō in Another World

Episode 9

Handyman Saitou has already established that it is able to simply start up some new, seemingly disconnected subplot whenever it wants to. So it goes that this week's episode opens with the heartwarming, then heart-wrenching tale of a demonic hunting dog falling in love with a wolf from the human realm. We follow the cool canine as it loses its mate, gains an offspring, and ultimately descends into a struggle for its own existence in the face of absorbing an excess of magical energy, turning it into a terrorizing mad beast that may need to be put down for the good of everyone else in the region.

About partway through the episode, it's revealed that the power source the wolf consumed was in fact the temporarily-dead Morlock's magical dick.

Yes, Handyman Saitou's defining irreverence is back in full swing after so much tonal uncertainty in the last story arc. We're still decidedly past the entirely sketch-based structure of the early episodes, but the "offbeat ongoing fantasy story" styling feels more fitting than ever with this one. Sure, I accurately predicted that Morlock's apparent death would wind up being some sort of fake-out, but the series still caught me off-guard by taking it through at least two fake-outs before the old man's proper revival reveal. And that's before we even get to the whole magical penis thing. Look, if I was previously going to take amusement in the fact that so much of Handyman Saitou's now-dense worldbuilding and ongoing story spun out of some early boner jokes, then I can't complain when they turn one into a critical plot device here for the latest story.

It works alongside the more simple, "serious" approach of the demon dog story. That one's honestly playing on easy mode, in that it's trivial to get an audience to invest in new characters and their struggles entirely because they're adorable doggies. And hey, this little plot serves as an effective mirror to the base Saitou situation, concerning someone from one world finding a new lease on happiness in the other. It gets by just fine on conceptual vibes even before we realize how it intersects with the case of Morlock's missing member. On top of that, the presentation for Handyman Saitou seems to still be solidly in its groove, giving us plenty of appreciably moody shots involving the dogs, as well as action scenes like the sick fight with this wonderfully weirdly designed hand demon. I think I'm more down for this sort of side-story of cool fantasy animals reenacting death metal album covers as a compliment to the comedic action than I was with the red-drenched magical-monster blast-fest that last arc nearly devolved into.

That comedy now feels best akin to the "Funny webcomic which eventually developed an invested ongoing plot" style the show seemed to really be reaching for lately. Morlock's disappeared ding-dong being the mechanically-mandated key to stabilizing his revival spell is absolutely the sort of thing I can see a group of goofy Dungeons & Dragons players stumbling into a year or so into their sessions. It lends itself to plenty of outlandish conversations contending with the team's current goals, alongside characters doing aside bits like Raelza being unable to concentrate after Saitou's own size is inadvertently revealed. It actually feels like it's been a while since our main party displayed this level of natural chemistry that they have standing around talking about Morlock's resurrection erection.

This human side of the plot is amusingly, consistently driven by these kinds of beats so far. They're even sure to slip in more regular reminders of Saitou's situation, with a neat little aside detail about him having developed strong skills at drawing missing animal posters as part of his all-purpose handyman help-outs. As well, the idea of a fantasy world playing faster and looser with death than the "real" one Saitou hails from gets used to thematic degrees. We see one side of it when Saitou enthusiastically convinces Raelza and Lafanpan not to give up hope just because Morlock is buried in the ground and decomposing at the time. And there's another side to it when Morlock uses his seemingly temporary term as a convenient reprieve, a chance to try to communicate Raelza's past and feelings for Saitou to the handyman as he realizes his time might still be running out. That itself is right on time with the dovetailing developments of the dog-eat-dong story.

If Handyman Saitou was always eventually angling for ongoing plots it wanted us invested in, I think this is the best way I could've hoped the show did it. There's a balance to the serious and goofy sides. Even though the former is technically mostly another backstory flashback, it's presented as better standing on its own than being jammed in to crowd out the more conventional content like what kept happening in that last arc. It comes off more natural, and if that also gives even an adaptation of a story like this the sense of something figuring itself out in real time, I'm still pleased to see it get here.

Rating:

Handyman Saitō in Another World is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris is a freewheeling Fresno-based freelancer with a love for anime and a shelf full of too many Transformers. He can be found spending way too much time on his Twitter, and irregularly updating his blog.

---

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.