In episode four of Chocolate Underground, our two heroes crack the code, find the headquarters of the underground chocolate producers and eat some chocolate. But have they been rumbled? Thus concludes episode four of the series.I hate to sound like a broken record yet again, but the five minute running time of each episode is absolutely destroying anything that could be made interesting about this series. Indeed, this episode is a prime example of the problem. While your average anime series would have taken the idea of a hidden code to find this secret lair and turned it into a full episode of its own, complete with a "Wow, what a moment of genius!" point of revelation, Chocolate Underground skips this process entirely, merely throwing in as an afterthought at the start of the episode "Oh by the way they've figured out the code from the last episode". Quite simply, it's weak.Add in to that the fact that we still don't really know anything about any of the main characters, and quite frankly we're left with no real reason to care. Perhaps if each episode came with a slab of chocolate I might feel a little more hospitable towards it, but it doesn't, so I don't. In truth, it only leaves me feeling hungry for a better series.
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