REVIEW: ‘Buddy Daddies’ Episode 5 — “Crunch Time”

Buddy Daddies has leaned hard into the wholesome and out of the hitman business in the last two episodes. Episode 3 focused on finding Miri’s biological mother and ultimately was about Rei and Kazuki choosing to be Miri’s papas. Episode 4 was about getting Miri enrolled in daycare and the responsibilities that come with actually being fathers, like sewing in name tags, handling issues at daycare, and making sure that you do what your child needs and now what you think she does. Now, Buddy Daddies Episode 5 is all about Rei and Kazuki’s two lives crashing into each other.

After messing up a hit, Kyutaro has withheld jobs from our daddy duo, but with excessive spending on Miri’s daycare, clothes, and setting up her room in the house, well the budget is in the red. With funds depleted, Rei and Kazuki have to get back into the hitman business again and quickly, but they can’t let their handler Kyutaro know about their new daughter. But that’s harder than it seems in Buddy Daddies Episode 5 when a virus hits Miri’s daycare and her class is sent home. With no time to do the job during the day and take care of Miri, and exhausted from working at night, the two wind up using Kyutaro as a babysitter of sorts—lying along the way to keep the truth of their papa-statuses hidden.

Buddy Daddies Episode 5, “Crunch Time,” offers up a dynamic view of parenting, working, and balancing a responsibility to take care of your family financially when the means to do that could harm your family overall. P.A. Works absolutely understands how to craft the series’ central conflict around its wholesome core. At the end of the day, Kazuki and Rei exchange people’s lives for money, they’re killers. They killed Miri’s father. But that doesn’t change how much they love Miri.

The ability to actively balance their hitman jobs against their fatherly duties is truly what makes Buddy Daddies Episode 5 so special. In a discussion at the end of the episode with Kyutaro, the audience is reminded that despite the joy and slice-of-life moments we’ve seen as the focus in the last episode life isn’t perfect. While Kyutaro’s lecture about the dangers of their jobs for our lead characters, it’s also a reminder for the viewers as well. The series understands the circumstances its characters are under and this allows a long-running narrative to develop in a way that makes the series more than just a gimmick.

Overall, Buddy Daddies Episode 5 continues the series’s streak of being a perfect blend of family wholesomeness and being an assassin—and the complexities of blending both. With their family life solidified, their jobs in place, and uncle Kyutaro able to help out with childcare by the episode’s end, I just want to know what will happen next. A perfect family, Buddy Daddies is the best anime has to offer in this very niche action/family comedy subgenre.

Buddy Daddies Episode 5 is available now on Crunchyroll with new episodes available every Friday.