Before Menagerie of Fools conduct their expedition, Reborn as a Vending Machine treats us with a little vignette where Boxxo sees a shy girl in love with Karios (Taketora), one of the town’s guards. Boxxo decides to be a wingman by providing the girl with all the ingredients she needs to cook oden, Karios’ favorite vending machine item. The plan works though to Boxxo’s chagrin, he now has to contend with Karios constantly gushing about the girl’s cooking. Nothing to say other than it’s a very cute and funny segment.
For the expedition, Menagerie of Fools is tasked with gathering intelligence on crocodile fiends. Aside from Lammis and Boxxo, Hulemy also tags along as a scientific consultant. The team ends up finding a horde of crocodiles in a marsh and while they were only required to do reconnaissance, they decide to kill the fiends for loot per Filmina’s request. Boxxo is once again a godsend for the team. Aside from improving their quality of life, he also concocts some pretty clever plans, first by dumping ice into the water to lure the crocodiles out and then creating a fog with liquid nitrogen that Filmina can enhance with her magic. A really funny bit during all this is Kerioyl realizing that Boxxo is now overshadowing him as the MVP in the team. Dude wants Boxxo on his team but his poor ego can’t handle it.
While all the fighters head off into the fog to fight the fiends, Hulemy confides in Boxxo that Director Bear hired her to tag along to find signs of a Lord, a powerful fiend that Boxxo equivalates to a video game boss. Lords are extremely rare sightings but with all the recent monster activities, Director Bear thinks a new one has appeared in the stratum. Naturally, with this sudden bit of worldbuilding, Hulemy jinxes the situation and the gang runs into a Lord. Lammis is knocked out cold and without her to carry him, Boxxo decides to be a decoy so that Hulemy can escape with the others.
Boxxo fending off the Lord is a bit of a creative risk for the show. As useful and versatile as he is, Boxxo isn’t really an overpowered isekai protagonist. Fact of the matter is that he is a stinking vending machine so realistically, he generally sits out or indirectly contributes to the team. Having him actually fight, and even win in the process, runs the danger of undermining the characters who are actual fighters and it could get the viewer to question if anyone else is needed if Boxxo can save the day on his own.
That said, there are a couple things to like about this fight. For starters, Boxxo wins not out of sheer power but rather creativity and he does screw up in the process. He tries tanking the fiend and while he does survive, the sustainability costs are too expensive. Boxxo then uses food to distract the Lord but he spawns too much and the fiend eats him in the process. He manages to win by upsetting the Lord’s stomach and causing an explosion with various items. While certainly successful, it required Boxxo to be in a very specific situation and a bad one at that as the stomach acid burned through his points. The fact that the fight costs Boxxo a lot of points is another reason why this fight works. Boxxo has a lot of points to spare at this point in the story so he needs something that forces him to be mindful with them again. Since the costs are expensive, this means the fight with the Lord might go down as a rare occasion in the story. It proves that Boxxo can go on the offensive but it also suggests that he can’t do it all the time, thus necessitating the need to be around other characters who can fight.
After the fight, Boxxo receives a special item from the fiend (which honestly looks like a Power Coin from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers). Taking the item however causes the ground to split, plummeting Boxxo into whatever lies below. It’s a pretty effective cliffhanger, especially when Boxxo worries what reaction Lammis might have over his disappearance. Something that I’ve noticed (and I totally didn’t neglect to mention) is that the characters describe the world as the show’s titular dungeon and the area they live in as a stratum. While that makes me wonder what shape this planet has, I’m guessing there exists other stratums in this world. Maybe Boxxo is falling into another one of them.
I feel really bad for Lammis. All the poor girl wants to is gain some fighting experience and she barely gets to gain any during the action scenes. Hell, she’s completely knocked out during the climax. That does set up Boxxo’s fight scene but it does contribute to the show giving Lammis the short end of the stick. I can only hope that Lammis will finally her big action moment. I mean, if her vending machine co-star can, why can’t she?
Watch Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon on Crunchyroll
Read my Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon reviews.
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