Shinpachi (episode)

Shinpachi is the first episode of season 4, FLCL: Grunge and the nineteenth overall. It premiered on Adult Swim on the Toonami block on September 9, 2023 at midnight ET.
==Synopsis==
A young boy named Shinpachi has been asked to help his father out at his sushi restaurant after the mayor and his new girlfriend have stopped by for a private dinner. At the night progresses, strange things begin to happen, eventually leading to an all out war between rival yakuza groups, the police, and Haruko Haruhara on the street of Okura City.
==Summary==
Shinpachi is asked by his father to make a sushi delivery to the local yakuza group. As he gets ready to make the delivery, he notices that the mayor and his new girlfriend have arrived at the family's restaurant for a private dinner. During his drive, he laments about how the adults in the town have become full of despair, due to the constant destruction. He then stops to notice yet another rocket shuttle fly off, seeing it as the last sign of hope. After returning back from his delivery run, he notices the mayor and his girlfriend, Haru, are still there, flirting with each other. Shinpachi's dad then asks his son to stay and assist him, but he becomes distracted, even more so as the Haru starts to flirt with the young boy. Later, he steps outside to the back alley to talk to his friend, Orinoko, who brought him a knife that her father made. After she leaves, Haru steps out into the alley, while pretending to be drunk and kisses Shinpachi on the lips. She then smiles and asks the boy how his head feels, before he suddenly hunches over in pain and sees a horn emerge from his forehead. Before he can confront her, the Medical Mechanica building blows out a massive stream of smoke into the streets, allowing her to disappear, while he tries to hide his new horn.
The next day, Shinpachi visits a local fishing area that is directly across Medical Mechanica. He is then greeted by his friend Shonari and his older brother Dainari, who are disposing of corpses for the yakuza group in the same fishing area. The two friends lament about how bad the town is getting and that they need to escape. After arriving back at the restaurant, Shinpachi sees that the Mayor and Haru are back, causing him to briefly relive the moment he grew a horn. A few moments later, they are joined by a talking robot named Yamaguchi, who is the executive director of Medical Mechanica. He apologizes to the couple for being late, but explains that Medical Mechanica called everyone in for a meeting after receiving word about the arrival of EBI Agent Amarao. After noticing a USB device shaped like a slice of maguro has been slipped into the prep area, Shinpachi tries to stop his dad from serving it, but Haru distracts the boy, allowing his father to use the device for the next piece of sushi. Yamaguchi ends up swallowing the device, which causes him to go berserk and Medical Mechanica to sounds the alarms as a virus spreads throughout the infrastructure. The mayor is informed by his security detail that they need to leave immediately and proceeds to give Haru a ticket for the last rocket shuttle that is leaving at midnight. Seeing that he has multiple tickets in his hands, she suddenly proceeds to attack him and his security team. After the mayor finally gets up, she reveals that she had been using him to get to Yamaguchi, before running off with his tickets. As the mayor becomes frustrated for being tricked, Shinpachi tells him that he needs to pay his bill, but he lashes out at the boy, telling him that he hates commoners, before proceeding to make a phone call and walk out. 
Shinpachi tries to go after the mayor, but his father tells him to stay and help with delivery, despite the city now going under martial law. He tries to point out that all of the things that they've witnessed should be concerning, but his father tells him that he is simply an artisan and does not get involved with customers' personal affairs. Frustrated by his father's inaction, Shinpachi reveals his horn and declares that he will do things his way by helping Haru out, only to accidentally knock himself out after bumping his horn into a nearby pipe. At the Mt. Fuji Cabaret, Haru, in a different outfit, is at her locker and her co-workers asks if she's working tonight as well. As she changes outfits, she informs her co-workers that she is quitting her job at the cabaret, but as a departing gift, she gives all of them the tickets that she had stolen from the mayor earlier that night. As she exits the club, she is immediately confronted by a large group consisting of yakuza, riot police, the mayor and his security detail. The mayor demands his tickets back and for her to go back to wearing her sexy outfit, but she reveals that she had been catfishing him the whole time and she only has one ticket left. Haru then tells him that she plans to use the ticket to see someone special to her, making the mayor even more angry and jealous. 
As the mayor is about to order the group to open fire on her, Shinpachi arrives on his motorbike and knocks down a large portion of the crowd. He declares to Haru that whatever she did to him earlier made him become a grown up and it is now his duty to help her. He then throws a container containing angry fishes at the yakuza members, giving her a path to escape. After she defeats another wave of yakuza that blocked her, she sees Shinpachi being held hostage by the mayor and several yakuza members. As the mayor orders the yakuza to kill the boy, Shonari jumps down from a nearby building, knocking the yakuza back. He then charges at the mayor and beheads him with his katana, before proceeding to quickly kill the remaining yakuza. Haru climbs atop of a nearby van and tells the rival yakuza gang that just arrived to fight hard against the remaining yakuza member that tried to harm her. As she tries to sneak away, the remaining yakuza and riot police chase after her, causing Shinpachi to call out to Shonari. The two friends get on Shinpachi's motorbike and speed through the streets to get to Medical Mechanica. As they get closer to the building, they finally see Haru on the other side of the bridge. She proceed to leaps off of her Vespa and fly towards the building with a sword in hand, asking where Atomsk is before creating a massive explosion. As Shinpachi looks on, he begins to asks himself if the excitement in his heart from watching Haruko is what hope feels like.
==Songs==
*"ONE LIFE" 
*"Stalker"
*"Sad Sad Kiddie"
*"Sleepy Head"
*"Advice"
*"Blues Drive Monster"
*"Vivid Venus"
==Credits==
===Japanese===
* Sakiko Uran as Haruko Haruhara
* Junko Takeuchi as Shinpachi
* Yuna Kitahara as Orinoko
* Seiyu Fujiwara as Shonari
* Taichi Takeda as Dainari
* Takeshi Maeda as Commander Amarao
* Motoi Koyanagi as Shinpachi's Father
* Hiroshi Shimozaki as Mayor Kuroiwa
* Masaaki Yano as Director Yamaguchi
* Shinya Takahashi as Keishibishi-gumi
* Hiroki Maeda as Samueda-gumi
* Takuro Sakashita as Riot Police Commander
* Taisuke Nakano as Rockian
===English===
* Kari Wahlgren as Haruko Haruhara
* Casey Mongillo as Shinpachi
* Michelle Marie as Orinoko
* Luis Bermudez as Shonari
* Marc Thompson as Dainari
* Aaron LaPlante as Commander Amarao
* Arthur Romero as Shinpachi's Father
* Dino Andrade as Mayor Kuroiwa
* Sean Kenin Elias-Reyes as Director Yamaguchi
* Marc Thompson as Keishibishi-gumi
* Kamran Nikhad as Rockian
* Samantha Weinstein as Akira / Saya
==Gallery==
Shinpachi(Episode)/Gallery
==Trivia==
Category:Grunge
Category:Episodes