Reborn as a Vending Machine – Episode 3 Recap & Review

Rebuilding

With the frog fiends defeated, episode 3 of Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon starts with Boxxo, Lammis and the rest of the gang heading back to town. However, on the way they find the village is now a smouldering ruin.

Upon further examination, it looks like something has been dragged through the village, and even the inn has been completely destroyed. Boxxo tries to give some encouragement to Lammis, and it does manage to calm her down a bit.

As they continue on, Lammis finds two guards, Karios and Gorth, who stand over a slain hydra. This is the source of all the drama and what was run through the village. Thankfully, the transfer circle is completely protected so they made swift work of this giant monster. And all the villagers are also okay too. Given how worried Boxxo has been, he decides to let all goods go for free.

The next day, Lammis is called in to the Hunter’s Association by the Director for her assessment into being a hunter. Boxxo hopes that it’s improved as a result of the expedition. Well, she’s given her new task after all… rubble removal. Given Lammis’ super strength, she makes short work of the job and everyone else is pretty shocked at her strength.

While she’s hard at work, a new character approaches; a purple-haired woman called Acowi who happens to be from the Exchange House. She’s accompanied by her assistant, Gocguy. They’ve come because they’ve heard this stratum is low on silver coins. It turns out, Boxxo only takes silver coins.

Well, now’s a good time to upgrade and what better way of doing this than Boxxo upgrading to exchange gold coins for silver ones. After doing just that, Acowi takes her leave, promising to return again another day.

With all this cash floating around, Boxxo also adds a new digital lottery function, allowing him to make even more money – up 30% on sales to be precise!

With the Hunter Association worried that an increase in population could lead to *ahem* lots more bedroom antics, Boxxo turns into a condom machine. Because of course he does. It’s not cheap though, given it’s 10 silver coins, but should help stop the spread of STDs while everyone is getting busy.

Boxxo can also use mimicry to blend in with his surroundings, and as a result of that, the Director wants to use Boxxo’s abilities to wait outside the Association and scout the place for him. While he’s invisible, he overhears Lammis being propositioned by Suori.

Now, this troublesome girl had tried to break the machine earlier in the series and now she’s trying to buy the machine off Lammis, despite getting a free drink earlier in the episode. Eventually Suori walks away, but Lammis is happy that the girl is speaking more now. And just like that, Boxxo presents himself like a vending machine game of peekaboo.

The Episode Review

Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon returns with another episode that basically shows that this anime is going to live or die by its ability to surprise and amuse with Boxxo’s vending machine antics. To be honest, beyond that there really isn’t much else here to gravitate toward.

The fantasy setting and the general ideas are basic in structure, and for much of this Boxxo feels more like a side character than the main protagonist. It makes sense, given he;s confined to one area and can’t exactly up and move about, but it also presents a pretty two-dimensional protagonist too.

We haven’t seen anything negative from Boxxo about how he feels in his new identity. Being reincarnated as a vending machine and unable to move; being attacked by creatures and unable to communicate properly; and just generally having an identity crisis. Surely there’s a lot you could do psychologically to develop Boxxo with a kaleidoscope of complicated feelings, but we haven’t actually seen any of that. In fact, Boxxo is having the time of his life.

3 episodes in, this anime feels in danger of losing its initial amusing charm without developing much depth to back it up. We’ll have to wait and see if this one will freshen things up or turn into another “fidget spinner fad”.