Tsugumomo – 08
Toraburu
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So this time around we had one very typical, but still very pleasant, evening that was followed by a thinly veiled excuse for just that much more fanservice. I think regular manga readers can probably look to this particular chapter and point out where the later excesses got their starts. |
Pudding and Youkan
Goodness, just to get her out of the house for half an hour, eh?
One of the best ways to present fantasy, or fantastical situations, is to have at least part of your story grounded in the every day. We need normal, true to life, situations or people to relate to, or else it’s just a bunch of esoteric stuff. This late in the season, this sort of slice of daily life serves a couple of purposes. Especially when done with such joyous aplomb. But all in all, when you have a house stuffed with an age regressed goddess, her incredibly voluminous and always hungry shrine maiden, and fighting kimono sashes, and they are sharing space with regular, or even not so regular-but-still-pretty-normal folk, the more everyday things you can do, the better. Not so much to get things lost in the shuffle, to to reflect on the shuffles we all go through.
…such as preparing the ingredients for dinner…good job girls, you may get a nice treat later
This is what provides the opportunity to sit back and enjoy the relaxation that contrasts the massive amounts of plot and lore energy that powers the muscle that bends the benefit of the doubt that is necessary to make fiction and fantasy work. Both are needed to do the trick, and in this case it’s pudding that will do the trick. and for some mizu youkan will do the trick – and if you’ve had Fruit Roll Ups, you’ve had something similar to youkan, as the agar in it is a polysaccharide, just like the pectin in the FRUs…and that’s a thing you now know, we use sea plants and land plants…Well, the red beans are very very different, but it’s a taste that I actually acquired and quite enjoy.
Kids will be kids no matter the situation
Anyway, a typical day in the life has just as much opportunity packed with as much adventure as any other tale, and the need for kotatsu tokusatsu tonkatsu sauce is as good as any quest starter upper. All you have to do is shake Kiriha away from hogging the TV and off you go. This was actually one of the chapters I read in my early days of just becoming acquainted with manga that truly made me love the read, and look forward to more. For those keeping track at home, the first half was 19.5 and I didn’t give myself time to find the exact chapter the second half adapted, but it’s later on, and it totally fits the mood, both for now and later. But, as far as the first half goes, being able to communicate an effective tale with this much detail with little to any real dialogue is no mean feat, and shows that our mangaka has the basics of storytelling down, and down pat. Believe it or not, believable normal is hard to convey. Plus, it’s just the sort of endearing and cute that I enjoy – nothing wrong with a big old happy smile on your face! It was in this sort of daily life that the supernatural weirdness found a place to belong, and become more relatable, and therefore enjoyable.
As long as Kiriha is picking on Kukuri, Kazuya is mostly happy…
Strangest tune: My Cologne Brings all the Girls to the Dias
And if slice of life isn’t your bag, there is always sweaty fanservice, right? Well, this one took place in a bath. So yeah, the “Toraburu in a Bottle” scheme is as old as Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and reached its heyday with two or three of the operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan. Plot’s in a bottle are handy, and I do love how the nature of the malison in the show’s particular mythology and lore gives it an extra boot full of welly. It’s a neat wrinkle, that if you have someone break the amasogi for you, you get all the curse power it siphoned, but if you break it yourself it all turns out pretty much OK from the supernatural standpoint. IRL, thou? Probably not, you will still have egg on your face. But all in all this one did more than just reach it’s goal of having our male lead getting that close to practically all his female fellow characters. We learned that malison can spread to others if the desire is universal enough, In that respect we also saw just how perverse and personal the malison can get, this one being mostly informed by Shirou’s lackadaisical, collect a million no’s, nature when it comes to netting potential romance. It can’t ever be that easy. A large collection of wandering eyes makes everyone not appreciate what can truly be appreciated. But yeah, this one was mostly a curvy road to a steamy bathtub…
Up with this, Chisato will not put! (bit of NSFW after the cut)
Tsugumomo won’t be getting any beach or pool episodes anytime soon (not in this cour anyway) but this bit of a breather and lore catch-up combo serves the exact same function. It’s that moment of rest before the plunge into the bigger story arc and/or the finale. So far we’ve had tsukigami, amasogi, malison, curse backlash, supernatural effects, local gods, power wagers, martial arts, malison hunters/exorcists, jealousy maybe a touch of betrayal, hidden powers, revealed pasts, and then we get all the fanservice. The next storyline is just gonna build on that foundation and bring us a much bigger story with clearly higher stakes. That’s just the thing to reward 8 weeks of solid viewing. See you…
Kazuya saves! and probably scores!
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Tsugumomo Blurays will have uncensored nudity.
Vol 1 comes out this June.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
As always kids! Buy the BD!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
That’s not surprising in the least. The general airing has been quite enthusiastic about its censorship. Though, that doesn’t stop the viewer’s raging imagination from breaching that wall.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Oh, of course not, one must hit the ball from where it lays…
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Tsugumomo Blurays will have extra lewdness!
http://i.imgur.com/Kt9KPrt.jpg
Note the slimy “bath gel” on the girls, Kazuya’s own special brand…
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
It was rather obvious what was going on in that very crowded bath. The boy is lucky to be alive, cause that sort of situation when the meat eats the man.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I suspected but a part of me didn’t want to believe it and another trying to convince myself it was all innuendo. They went that far? Good lord… Are they aware this isn’t a hentai?
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…it happened “off-screen” in both the manga and the anime. Also, this is just getting started…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
The first half was out there for mostly being awkwardly silent but watching Kukuri being so considerate around the house was endearing. Ironic how the newcoming Kukuri is pulling her weight while the residential Kiriha is the one freeloading.
The second half was karma at its finest with Shiro learning a life lesson that it doesn’t pay to be greedy. If the guys threw a fit over Shiro at school, imagine if they saw Kazuya’s unwilling fantasy in the bathroom.