Showa Monogatari – 10

And with this we’re finally done with the preview episodes, and it’s finally time for this series to wrap itself up. The big focus on this episode was Yuuko. My memory may be a bit fuzzy on this point, but I’m surprised that she still stuck with that guy after he failed to take her to that love hotel. It’s a major episode that shows her getting in trouble by stealing something from a store.

Seriously though: the drama in this series is really down to earth. First of all the big drama of this episode didn’t revolve around the world getting destroyed or somebody dying, but instead on someone stealing a record from the Beatles. This show actually succeeds in creating good drama from that, but what’s even better is that this episode also succeeded in delivering some good drama on something even more mundane: Kouhei’s father having a terrible day at work. Whereas the foreshadowing of Yuuko’s adventures could have been a bit more subtle, her father’s bad temper has been around the entire series and this episode showed really nicely the troubles he has controlling this, alongside raising a teenaged daughter at a difficult age and a son as he hit the bratty age.

Speaking of which: Kouhei was in the background again with his tasks mainly reduced as a narrator, foreshadowing for other characters and trying to draw his father for homework. This is where he fits best. The drama around him has by far been the least interesting of the entire series, so it’s always good to see the focus on the rest of the cast.

Also, it’s been five months since this show debuted, with only one episode subbed. With Hyouge Mono I can understand the delay: it is really complex to understand. But seriously: the dialogue in Showa Monogatari is not difficult and quite easy to understand.
Rating: ** (Excellent)