Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera: Episode 6 Part 1
Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera (’Ghastly Hell Prince Enma Burning Up’) is the 2011 adaptation of the Dororon Enma-kun, and is aimed at an older teen audience than the more accessible original 1973-74 anime adaptation, returning to the manga’s comedic ecchi roots.
In this version, Tsutome isn’t the main human character, but instead his girlfriend Harumi, swapping their roles from the manga. Episode 5 teased what episode 6 would be like with a larger round Harumi, and she turns out to be the first victim of a roly-poly epidemic in the story.
Like with the manga, the sumo-like spirit enrolls in school, though here he’s renamed Goro Goro in his human disguise and his real name goes from being Truffle Shuffler to Fukurashiko aka Balloon Boy. He’s depicted here as being way taller than in the source material in both forms with a somewhat egg-shaped body. Balloon Boy is a lot more jolly and passionate about making people fat rather than hating people who are healthy and skinny. He goes to hug Harumi after smelling her Ramune (a Japanese soft drink) and being overwhelmed with happiness; Harumi responds by straight-up kicking him right in the face, unintentionally launching him out of the window, though he’s absolutely fine with the kick and fall, even saying he’s okay immediately after.
Harumi’s a bit embarrassed about having just done that, though her chest suddenly twitches and then immediately inflates before a big pink cloud appears, much like with Moeyo Ken. Nothing like the chest thing happens with any other characters. When everything’s cleared up, Harumi is now a big floating balloon, much to her shock, as well as the amusement from the boys and surprise and embarrassment of the girls...though with the class’ reactions, that’s mostly because she’s wearing a skirt and is facing away from the them bar the teacher, and thankfully she was wearing her swimsuit underneath in a case of being prepared for next class. Yeah, this is an example of what the anime’s humour can be like.
Already we can see how different this is from the manga’s version - rather than just simply rapidly gaining weight over the course of a day, we have characters instantly inflating into big spherical bodies through a big pink explosion of smoke with their arms and legs making it impossible for them to even walk, and are light to float around. Also there’s no need for the Balloon Boy to call out his ability to expand someone, as merely him touching them or vice versa leads to it happening.
