Kakushigoto Episode 4

Kakushigoto Episode 4

Normale Namae / Komawari Sketch

As always, episode 4 of Kakushigoto was good. The first half of the episode focused on Kakushi not liking his pen name because, well, it’s just his normal name. This is obviously problematic for him because he’s worried that it could lead to Hime discovering that he’s a mangaka.

But while Kakushi is worrying about how to change his pen name — something his editors won’t allow because it would destroy his brand recognition — Hime is using his name to read his fortune. And as it turns out, Kakushi has extremely high luck in every area except artistic ability.

And although this is supposed to be a joke at his expense, let’s read too far into it instead. Perhaps Kakushi’s artistic luck being so low is a reflection of the fact that he’s actually a good artist; luck has nothing to do with it. This would also explain why the rest of his luck stats are high, because although art is the only thing he’s good at, everything else seems to work out for him too.

Nadila from the anime series Kakushigoto
Nadila

We then also get the scene of Hime and Nadila, the maid, doing some voodoo fortune-telling. I’m not entirely sure about the gag that accompanied this scene about all the local mangaka being persuaded to change their pen names by a fortune teller, but maybe one of you can enlighten me.

My guess is that this is just a jab at authors constantly wanting to update their pen names, but the whole fortune teller thing seemed oddly specific.

Naru’s Art Class

I was surprised to see my favorite girl, Naru Senda, again so soon. Was that just last week that we were introduced to her? I feel like it was two weeks ago. But still, I didn’t expect her to make very many appearances.

In this episode, Naru appears as a teacher in an art class meant for children which Kakushi signs up for. He does this because he’s not confident with his scenery drawing, and he needs to impress Hime while helping her with her art project. He also needs to learn how to draw things in a non-manga style.

But none of that information about Kakushi is what matters. What matters here is that Naru is the art teacher and she’s apparently pretty good at drawing scenery. She’s even won a few contests, and Kakushi acknowledged her abilities.

Naru teaching Kakushi how to draw backgrounds from the anime series Kakushigoto
Naru teaching Kakushi how to draw backgrounds

So why does that part matter? Well, last week when I suggested that Naru probably wouldn’t be around too much in this series, I mentioned that she isn’t an apprentice at Kakushi’s studio. However, that doesn’t seem like such a far fetched idea anymore.

We know that Naru is a talented artist, and we know that she apparently specializes in scenery. We also know that Kakushi’s apprentice in charge of drawing all of the scenery in his manga is prone to injuring his drawing arm. So does this create an opening for Naru to join the team?

I now think that’s a very likely scenario.

Sure, the apprentice injuring his arm was a good setup for Kakushi to utilize the technique he learned from Hime. That is, drawing a scene from the perspective of an animal so they don’t have to draw the animal itself, but still imply its existence. The guy who draws the scenery is also the one who draws animals.

But it’s also extremely convenient that the background artist just hurt his arm again right after we learned that Naru can also draw backgrounds.

Zoo Date

The zoo date had a lot of good content all wrapped into one section of the episode. It had Hime’s teacher mistakenly thinking Kakushi and her were going on a date at the zoo, her students mistakenly thinking she was on a date by herself because her partner had died, and, of course, baby Hime.

Starting with that first point, I still love how Kakushi is basically a harem anime protagonist. He has all these women falling for him, and yet he’s completely oblivious to their intentions. But unlike a normal harem protagonist, he’s not just some kid who can’t read the room, he’s too focused on making his daughter happy.

I’m still curious about whether or not he actually will end up with any of these women though. I don’t think he will, but it’s always a possibility. As I mentioned last week, though, I think Naru is out of the question. And we can probably cross of Nadila and the girls who work for Kakushi too.

Baby Hime from the anime series Kakushigoto
Baby Hime

The second part of the zoo scene was my favorite, where Hime’s classmates get the wrong idea about their teacher. Their initial impression of her being alone at the zoo was correct, but when she denied that this was the case, that’s when their minds ran wild.

Also, I wasn’t really paying attention to them, but were these two of Hime’s friends from the first episode? I’m not going to go back to check, so you can let me know in the comments.

Finally, we have baby Hime, which is basically the same as current Hime but smaller and dressed like a bear. She still has the same blank expression on her face, so we can assume her head has been completely empty ever since she was born. Also, her mother is still around in this scene, so I’m not quite sure when she died.

Conclusion

What did you think of Kakushigoto episode 4? Will Naru end up joining Kakushi’s studio? Will Hime’s teacher ever get to go on a real date with Kakushi? And, on a scale from 10 to 10, how cute is baby Hime? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

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