The Eccentric Family reprised one of the first season’s highlights this week, offering the followup to the tanuki flying festival. In spite of repeating a couple plot beats, it managed to find its own identity, offering great moments for Gyokuran and pretty much all of our resident tengu. I’m also excited to see this season actually presenting Benten as clearly fallible, which will hopefully lead to some great development for her.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below.
The hole in the shogi board emerges into dad’s shogi room, which as it turns out is now attached to sensei’s apartment?
Yasaburo invites Gyokuran to join them for the festival, but it turns out they don’t actually have a ship
Yaichiro’s expression shifts through that sequence are great
Frog bros!
Tsundere sensei
Akadama says that Nidaime is not the “Nidaime,” and that Benten will inherit his legacy
Traditionally animated crowds do a lot, and this show’s simple character art style lets them indulge. It really feels like a bustling town
Also enjoy the unique evening colors
Akadama got annoyed by the Yasaburo parents flirting and locked them in the shogi room together
Akadama’s blunt personality actually gets the young couple to confess
“A fun thing is a good thing”
Benten arrives
And so do the twins. Feeling a bit too much like a retread of the first season’s festival. And the twins are the show’s worst characters by far
Gyokuran chewing them out is great, though
This sequence of chaos is fantastic. Tons of great visual ideas
And of course they crash-land on the Ebisugawa ship
Nidaime arrives, and is disappointed
Yasaburo tries to mediate, and Benten comes in with the save. They’re both extremely competent when they need to be
Benten met the Nidaime in London
Their battle is framed as a dual between samurai. And Benten loses?!?
Christ, these layouts are gorgeous
Akadama is the one who comforts Benten. “Even tengu fall sometimes”
I think my favorite part about “even Tengu fall sometimes” is that there’s the whole history with Akadama losing the ability to fly, and how Benten was ultimately responsible. So not only is it immediately applicable advice, he’s also indrectly saying something about that history. I can’t quite decide what it is–“I forgive you”? “all wounds heal”? “what will be will be”?–but that’s what makes it so interesting to me. I like ambiguity, and there’s a whole lot of that in Benten’s relationships.