What is Kaisei hiding, and hiding from?
What They Say:
“Kaisei, Daughter of Ebisugawa”
Yasaburo gets interrupted while warming his butt and sent to convince Prof. Akadama to attend the council where the new Nise-emon will be decided. He later succeeds in his quest for warmth, but over the wall splitting the men’s and women’s baths, he receives an ominous apology from Kaisei; her brothers are plotting something.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This was the first episode of The Eccentric Family where I didn’t find any stand out bit of scenery or breathtaking animated moment. Sure, everything still looks nice, just not as impressive. Perhaps the usual director wasn’t on this episode, either way it makes for a small disappointment. The one highlight was seeing Kaisei’s human face, which has been built up to be a big reveal. Amusingly, she is cute but unassuming.
Should I bother explaining that Crunchyroll write-up about Yasaburo’s butt? We’re into December in this episode, and he was toasting himself by a space heater in that scene. Indeed, Yasaburo is sent by his mother to help his brother and the other tanuki to convince the professor to witness the election. It’s funny to watch the other tanuki fall over themselves when dealing with Akadama. Only the fool of the family can appeal to Akadama’s pride and talk him into being the witness.
Hidden inside the conversation with Akadama is the last bit of information explaining how Soichiro managed to become dinner. Soichiro’s one weakness was he couldn’t maintain a transformation in front of Benten. Why exactly is something we don’t know, but it appears to be psychological rather than magical.
Unfortunately, Yasaburo can’t quite convince the other professor to give up his tanuki hunt. Yasaburo would appear to have nerves of steal. How else would he be able to visit the man regularly? (It must be the free snacks, I had to look up the thing they’re eating. It’s called baumkuchen, and now I want one.) The extremely casual conversations he can have with the devourer of his father is still at odds with the very real threat posed by the group. Yasaburo keeps hoping that the man just won’t be able to catch a tanuki in time, but it’s pretty obvious that someone is going to end up in that pot. Even if it’s only a temporary thing.
With a return to the bathhouse, this time alone, Yasaburo can relax and warm up. His personal stalker Kaisei happens to be the lone occupant of the woman’s side of the bath, and in the conversation that follows we finally see her in human form. Interestingly, she’s been hiding her appearence from Yasaburo as well. She’s more than a bit rude to him, but also gives him a cryptic warning and ominous apology about the actions of her jerk brothers. I foresee more family feuding in the near future.
In Summary:
It appears that The Eccentric Family still has a few closely guarded secrets it’s hiding. We finally meet Kaisei, but we don’t learn much about her. Slowly the date for the tanuki election grows closer, and it’s clear the cousins are up to no good. With Yasaburo not making much progress in convincing the Friday Fellows to give up their new year’s feast, things are looking ominous. I don’t doubt that Yasaburo will find a way to solve this mess, but time is growing short.
Episode Grade: B
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: 24” iMac running OS 10.6.8, via Safari 5.1.9, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.
