Time for little furball romance. This week is all about pairing up Yaichirou and Gyokuran and she definitely fits the show like a glove. So far, Eccentric Family has been successfully follows Yasaburou around with his frantic odd jobs, while at the same time reintroduces the old cast and more over fleshing out the new additions, as such this week is another great week for our furballs adventure. We have a solid 3-arc standalone development for our new girl, Gyokuran. She first appears in this episode when she pays Yasaburou a visit, he himself serves as a stand-in for Okazaki family – a zoo tanuki family that consists of dozen members that all go to a holiday on a city bus (how can you even beat that?). Upon the conversations two things are pretty clear about Gyokuran: she’s lovely, caring person and she has romantic feelings towards Yaichirou, but they had a “tragic past” that prevent Yaichirou from playing shogi with her again (in other words, silly little reason – she was purposely lost that made Yaichirou raged).
But good things never go as plan in the world of tanuki. Despite making the best efforts to bring back such an old tradition of Shogi Competition (which in truth is the match between only 2 players: herself and Yajirou the frog) to tanuki community, small disputes between the idiot twins and Yasaburou bring annoyance and chaos to the event. Gyokuran shows her insecure side by transforming into a white tiger to snap back the twins. The commotion upsets Gyokuran so she holes herself up and refuses to meet everyone. Yasaburou shows up to make amend and bridges the love between Gyokuran and Yaichirou. All those flashbacks are lovely, which I’m particularly impressed with the second flashback when the young kids looking for Yasaburou: the atmosphere, the vivid background and the sound of the wind really bring a sense of overwhelming-by-the-nature to life. The shogi match at the end between the love birds feel like a natural progression for their relationship. Gyokuran appears as sincere, yet insecure who like Yaichirou is torn between responsibility with the community; her own family’s tradition and the desire of freedom. Just like how the tanuki lose their ability to transform when they’re inside a cage.
This episode further examines the main weakness of Yasaburou. Yasaburou lacks any sense of responsibility, that we all know well. So far, his carefree attitude breaks the normal convention to bring something fresh, fun and exciting to his everyday life, but when putting in the context of society, his impulsive actions tend to bring trouble to the people around him. Sure, the twins start the fight but it’s just plainly irresponsible of him to ignore all the efforts of others and fight back. I actually feel worse that he shows little remorse over the consequences. Likewise, he can’t understand the appeal of shogi in which discipline and patience take priority. For him, he rather invents new rules instead of follows the old beaten path. But given that he’s flexible in every situation also equal to Yasaburou is very quick to console others from their disappointment. His meeting with Gyokuran where he humors her by his silly shogi moves and directly tells her to go for what she’s feeling because “why not!” says the best of his characteristic to bring optimism and enthusiasm towards other members.
Other characters all doing fine this episode whenever they appear on screen, but it’s those characters who don’t appear this episode that makes me kind of puzzled. I can overlook the absence of Kaisei (she comes and goes as she’s pleased, just like Benten), but I can’t think of any reason why Yashirou didn’t appear in the Shogi Tournament. I know The Eccentric Family has such large cast so it’s better to divide them up but please don’t put them away for too long or make them disappear inexplicably. Hopefully as the story keeps rolling forward together we will have everyone appears again soon. Other than that, Tousen steals the scene by offering Yasaburou an offer that he can’t refuse. Yajirou is as observant and cool as ever and Bentei, OMG Benten, she comments how petty Nindaime is but she proceeds to ruin all his shirts and flies off? I’m hype for their crash in the future. As of now, like the old tanuki say, after beating Yaichirou, Gyokuran is taken by the God of Shogi (remember this guy? The one who made a contract with Rei in 3-gatsu). Or is it Father’s forgotten secret room? We will have the answers next week.
