Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari – 06

When you just want to hog the fluffiness for yourself but your friend finds out

It’s a busy, stressful time right now for me. I don’t just mean a particularly bad week either…this whole month has and will be a chaotic storm. At least blogging takes my mind off all the work waiting for me!

I feel like this show is floundering. It’s good at micro-drama, where Souta has deep conversations with his friends about very personal, adult issues. I like seeing marriage, kids, and jobs being discussed so thoroughly in a way that doesn’t make it seem like there’s one correct option we should all blissfully strive towards. However, as soon as any attempt is made for more macro-drama and overarching problems, things don’t work out as well.

At least he had a reaction other than “:O” or “:’O”

The thing about deep conversations is that they can spring out of nowhere and then come to a satisfying conclusion just as abruptly as they started. The same can’t be said for deciding what to do about your job back in Tokyo when you just want to look after your stray tanuki baby. This isn’t the kind of thing that should be solved by Souta just waltzing back in and quitting on a dime. His decision came far too quickly given how much he’s been agonizing over what to do for so long.  Isn’t this supposed to be about Souta coming to terms with his emotions? Aren’t we supposed to follow him through his thought process as he picks whether to go left or right at each fork in the road? All this build-up with Souta talking out his feelings with people, and it manifests in a snap decision. It felt incredibly anti-climactic.

“You adopted a kid and want to take care of it like an adult? HOW IRRESPONSIBLE!”

Perhaps that desperate phone call was the final push to tip Souta over the edge. Sometimes people are forced to choose suddenly when pressured, and this may have been one of those situations. But even if I trick myself into believing that, I still can’t bring myself to really enjoy this episode fully. The office drama was…weird. I don’t like being thrown into an environment where Souta has all these established relationships that we don’t know about, but are somehow expected to infer. Hiroshi basically slides into the spotlight like he’s some old friend we’re supposed to miss…and he can’t pull it off.

It also doesn’t help that Hiroshi and boss guy are so standoffish at first. Souta’s boss literally yells at him for taking in a child instead of just, I dunno, tossing it in a garbage bin and moving on with life, I guess. That seems to be what he’d rather do. I’m not sure why his decision is so frowned down upon. Things get especially awkward when Hiroshi hoists Poco up on his shoulders and threatens to kill him in cold blood. It’s one thing to question Souta’s choice to adopt a kid,but it’s another thing to do so in front of said kid, who is already bawling his eyes out. These guys make Nakajima seem kind in comparison because not only are they jerks to Poco, they show no respect for Souta’s choices.

Thankfully, the office peeps redeem themselves and suddenly go all dere-dere. Now they just love Poco! They share onigiri with him, give him udon, apologize profusely, take him on a fun outing…it’s a real 180, and I liked the episode a lot more when we saw everyone’s good side. I guess when you work somewhere for 10 years, your coworkers get so attached they don’t quite know how to react when it’s time to part ways. They really…really…really…didn’t know how to react.

Ah, so he’s won over by food.

It was an okay episode in the end, but I still feel like it lacked something. Souta gets off the hook a little too easily, and his motivations don’t seem convincing. Why does he love Poco so much that he’s going to quit his job? He just met this kid who is actually a raccoon thing. He could literally just leave him a bowl of food every now and then to prevent him from ravaging the crops if that’s what he’s worried about, and that could be it. Instead, he gives him the total parenting package. I mean, yeah, he’s cute…but you’d think Souta would waver a little more when it means he has to quit his job and live far away from where he’s been the past 10 years.

The hard decisions come far too easily in this show. I think that’s what prevents this show from tugging at any heartstrings…it’s just playing it too safely. It’s shying away from any of the storylines I’d love to dive into, such as if other tanuki exist, why no one else is allowed to see Poco, Souta’s leg, and the family udon shop. We haven’t really gotten into any of that…and we’re halfway through. I get that this is a slice of life show and new things don’t have to go down every minute, but I’d appreciate more attempts to give attention (and not just a measly episode) to these big issues eating at Souta.

Also, this week’s Gaogao was super lame, so that just proves 100% that this episode wasn’t as good as it should’ve been.

Maybe you can take him to a kemonomimi maid cafe and he’ll fit in just fine