Review: Rokuro The Great Adventure ★★★☆☆
Let's Make A Mug Too was one of the most pleasant surprises I stumbled into while watching seasonal anime in 2021. Learning tidbits about traditional Japanese pottery in a cute girls doing cute things styled format was a treat. It was one of the least watched shows of the season if sites like Anilist and MyAnimeList are to be believed which seemed like such a shame.
So after two seasons I was pleasantly surprised to see the show was getting a spinoff and was subsequently bemused to learn it was going to be about dental hygiene? Released exclusively on a Japanese dental hygiene app no less! The official announcement for the Rokuro The Great Adventure (aka Rokurou no Daiboken) suggested it would follow Rokuro as he “helps dentists and dental hygienists and works to prevent oral diseases and promote dietary education.” The show we actually got was nothing like that.
The show follows Rokuro, his older brother Goro, and his younger sister Nanako, as they travel across the land trying to find the shattered pieces of twelve amulets that protect the world. No one knows who shattered the amulets or why a curse seems to be spreading across the land, but Rokuro, with the help of his magic paintbrush and various “Help Gear,” will do his best to save the day!
Though you might not be able to get all those details without the help of the anime’s official website. The series just kind of throws you into its first episode with a very basic intro before the opening song plays and all of the cute little critters are off on their adventure.
Rokuro The Great Adventure follows more of a monster of the week (technically of the month with how it released) format where Rokuro and the gang travel to a new area in the various weather based regions, encounter someone, and the evil character King curses them to become a big rampaging monster of some kind who must be stopped! Rokuro calls upon Dr. Tsukuro and the various Komonozuku who are with him make a tool to help them out. If and when that tool fails, Rokuro uses his magic paintbrush to paint something that will save the day. The curse is lifted, the people return to normal, and Rokuro usually eats a big tasty meal of some kind as thanks alongside his siblings. While the show is a bit formulaic, it does go out of its way to subvert its own formula in cute and comedic ways. It even almost breaks the fourth wall in goofy ways sometimes.
This show isn’t something like The Adventures of Timmy The Tooth or Dr. Rabbit in the Incredible Ride. In fact, minus a mouse holding a toothbrush that is hidden across episodes for kids to spot, there’s no actual mention of dental hygiene of any kind! All of that is done on the Dental E app which lets kids watch the episodes, play silly games, and read lots of instructions on dental care.
The show being exclusive to an app in another country and in another language is the big roadblock preventing English speaking audiences from watching it. While there is an English fansub online for those who know where to find it (tee hee), is it worth going through the trouble to hunt it down?
I reasonably assume I'll be the only person to ever consider reviewing this show in English, if at all. I hope if anyone comes across this review and likes to watch anime off the beaten path a shot. The show is only six episodes long, twelve really since they’re all split into two parts, and will run just over an hour for those watching the entire series. It’s not a lot of time to invest to see a cute little curiosity that very few other people will have on their watch lists.
But honestly, the novelty of Rokuro The Great Adventure being an anime exclusively released on a dental hygiene app is its greatest appeal. The proposition to sit down and watch it would probably be more attractive if it was more like the kitsch shows and films that overly focused on teeth that so many kids saw growing up in schools or at home. Rokuro The Great Adventure is absolutely a cute watchable little distraction but isn’t changing the world of anime by any means.
So on the Grill Rating Scale™ I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars - Watchable. Rokuro The Great Adventure can absolutely do the job it was made to do, entertaining kids as a fun distraction, and can do the same for anyone else who gives it a shot.
