Kakushigoto Episode 8

Kakushigoto Episode 8

Our Rough Draft

I’ll start off this review of Kakushigoto episode 8 by saying that I didn’t really think there was any one gag this week that stood out. They were all pretty average as far as I’m concerned. The best one might have been Tomaruin ruining everything as usual by questioning why reaching 100 chapters is a big deal.

It’s a bit impressive that a character as annoying as Tomaruin was written, though. Sure, there are plenty of annoying characters across the medium of anime, but how many of those were actually written to annoy people on purpose? He doesn’t just convey the idea of an annoying person as a trope-y character would; he really is annoying.

Hime and Kakushi heading out for the day from the anime series Kakushigoto
Hime and Kakushi heading out for the day

Aside from Tomaruin simply being annoying, the first half of this episode also dealt with the idea that rough drafts are better than finished products. I sure hope that’s the case because all of the posts on this blog are rough drafts. I don’t actually proofread or edit any of this.

The talk of rough drafts starts with Kakushi mentioning that he considers the pencil drafts of his work to be better than the inked-in final product. And while that’s a fair point in itself (I guess, I’m not a mangaka), it’s used to set up that his current family of himself, Hime, and now Roku, is the “final draft.”

Kakushi views the “better” “rough draft” to be himself, Hime, and Hime’s mother (and I guess Roku can still be included). So the theme of this episode is really how there is no “better” version of a family. Though it’s probably fair to say that his wife not dying would be preferable.

Hime’s New Mom

As we’ve seen throughout the previous episodes, there’s not much going on inside of Hime’s head. But if there’s one thing she does think about, it’s her family — specifically how much her father has to do because her mother is no longer in the picture.

This came up twice in episode 8. The first time, Hime decides to decline a birthday party invitation from a girl in her class because she figured that if she went, she would have to invite that girl to her own birthday party. Why is this an issue? Because she doesn’t want to cause her father trouble by making him host a party for her and her friends.

Hime thinking for the first time from the anime series Kakushigoto
Hime thinking for the first time

The second time Hime thinks about the state of her family in the episode is when Kakushi invites his cooking teacher into their house for a private lesson. Now, at this point, Hime didn’t actually say what she was thinking. But from her expression and body language we can see that she’s feeling unsure about this new woman being in their house.

Naru isn’t a threat because she’s still in school and is one of Hime’s friends. And if it were Nadila or Ichiko, that also wouldn’t be an issue because they’re Hime’s babysitter and teacher respectively. But she’s only met You once before, and even then it was under strange circumstances — Kakushi brought her to Hime’s sports festival.

So not only is You a relatively unknown woman from Hime’s perspective, but the fact that You and Kakushi are cooking together in their home is also fueling the flames. Hime is probably worried that her father is looking to remarry.

And if we consider why Kakushi remarrying would worry Hime, there are a few reasons. She might think that means Kakushi doesn’t care about Hime’s mother anymore. Or it could mean that Kakushi will have less time to spend with Hime. And it’s also possible Hime thinks he wants to remarry because Hime is too much to handle on his own.

Unfortunate Memories Club

As always, I need to end this episode review by discussing the new developments in the “present” time of the series. At first it didn’t really seem like there was going to be much to talk about in regards to the present this week, but the very end of the episode changed all that.

The first of two things I want to mention here is that we’re given more of a concrete reason for why Kakushi chose to move out of his old house. We don’t yet have a real reason as to why he had the new house built exactly like the old one, but I still think him doing it for Hime’s sake makes sense.

But the reason he moved out of the old house is two-fold. He wanted to move out because living there would remind him of his wife, and he also wanted to move closer to the city to make his work more convenient. The latter reasoning makes more sense to me because the new house is exactly the same anyway — so wouldn’t it still bring those memories back?

Hime dressed up to go to a birthday party from the anime series Kakushigoto
Hime dressed up to go to a birthday party

What’s even more important than Kakushi’s reason for moving, though, is that we’re shown that his current house is for sale. Or at least I think that was the current house and not the old one — they look the same after all.

If it was the old house, this could be a sign that Kakushi is ready to move on after all these years. But if it was the current house, then that seems to feed into my theory about Kakushi not being around anymore. Why else would that house be for sale?

And before anyone says it could be for sale because he’s moving, do you really think he would sell it even if he was moving? He didn’t sell the old house after moving because that’s where his memories of his wife are. And I don’t think he would sell this house because that’s where his memories of Hime growing up are.

Conclusion

The farther we get into Kakushigoto the more I don’t think it’s going to end well for Kakushig and Hime. But the only tags I’ve seen on this series are slice of life, comedy, and shounen. It’s not as if it’s tagged as a drama, but there are some serious drama undertones to all the present day scenes.

What did you think of episode 8? Did you have a favorite gag of the episode? Do you think Kakushi is really going to remarry? If so, who is he going to choose? And why do you think the house is for sale? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

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