The third episode of Kakushigoto leaves me a bit indifferent. This week, Kakushigoto presses hard on its “gags” nature and while that works well in his previous anime adaptations, I feel these skits are a bit random in Kakushigoto. Structure-wise, the show bookends bits of the present day (with more context each time) to its “flashback” that really is our true timeline. So what do we learn in this flashforward this week? That the house the 18-yo Hime visits is their old house before they moved to Nakameguro and that Gotou layouted their new house exactly like this old house. The fact that the house in Nakameguro is on sale now, and with Gotou’s still absent in the flashforward could mean something sad is waiting around the corner.
So far, the main sources of humor from Kakushigoto come from mangaka’s inside jokes, Gotou’s hijinks when he tries his best to hide his profession from Hime, and Gotou or Hime’s relationship to others. The “hilarious life of manga artist” sections aren’t normally my favorite part of the show as I am not big in in-joke. This week, we have inside jokes about a talented assistant that comes and goes like a wind (his name reflects that) and a humorous look at a manga artist’s workout through… reading manga. The best portion is the sketch where Gotou and his team learn computerized drawing, outsourcing and all these digitalizations that sadly resonate to the current situations we’re living now.
Hime takes the central stage in the first half as Kakushigoto shows the way she goes her way of “saving” when her friends mention that her family is poor (kids can say the most inappropriate things sometimes). The way Hime deals with that “fact” says a lot about her character. Instead of feeling ashamed or let-down, she makes peace with it and perhaps adapts way too well to save money. It’s adorable but touching in a way that she tries her best in her own way to not trouble her father.
In the second half, Kakushigoto shuffles its genre and becomes a satire of harem plot when Gotou “accidently” hits on several random girls (we do get lots of new characters this week), and finds himself in a bind when they all show up for Hime’s sports festival day (with Rokujo the yandere teacher lurking behind the background). Gotou works himself up on that day in fear that his daughter would feel lonely when she sees other families around, but Hime softly reminds him at the end of the day that she would be perfectly happy to spend time with him alone. That is precisely the heart of their misunderstanding right now: Gotou refuses to open up to her about his job in fear that she suffers from finding out, but he misses the fact that Hime would be perfectly fine with it even if she does know.
