Youkai Apartment no Yuuga na Nichijou  continues to be an interesting hybrid of themes and a show that’s not afraid to go dark.  There are more than a few of those out there of course, and even the occasional one that presents a dichotomy between the subject matter and the usual tone.  But what makes this series really interesting in that regard is that it doesn’t really change its tone even when it’s confronting the darkness head-on.  It deals with the darkest of subject matter in the same matter-of-fact, even humorous way it deals with everything else.

When it comes to theme, it’s not easy to go much darker than child suicide.  But this is Youkai Apato, so bring it on – here, in the form of a 6th-grader named Yumi (though she looks one hell of a lot older than that).  At this point Yuushi’s spiritual power is such that he can detect things like a child’s suicidal vibes at a distance, and he races up to the roof where Yumi is thinking hard about jumping.  But it’s not Yuushi who saves her, not this time – he’s too slow.  In fact Fool chooses to reveal himself to Yumi rather than allow her to jump, which is a rather impressive feat of quick thinking and a good assessment of priorities on his part.

Life lessons are the stock and trade of this show, and “don’t kill yourself, kids” is an obvious enough one that it can be dispensed with fairly quickly.  But the larger issue here is that of children growing up too fast – and one could see that being an especial problem for a 6th-grader who looks about 16.  And hands out business cards, and addresses her elders casually, and hangs out with older girls who use her as a shoplifting app when they run out of makeup.  Yuushi’s more experienced friends at Kabuki-so warn him of what’s likely to happen if he agrees to meet with Yumi after he saves her, but Yuushi has grown enough as a person that he’s able to handle this on his own.

The other interesting element of this episode was the meet-up of the English Conversation Club and the Gaikokujin Club, which features the long-awaited dubbing of the anime.  To their credit Shin-ei got mostly English-speaking seiyuu to play the foreigner roles (including the club president, George), which makes the scene a lot less preposterous than most of its kind in anime.  The Japanese actors (including Abe Atsushi) struggle a bit, but that’s perfectly natural – you’re not going to see Japanese high-schoolers speak English with perfect pronunciation.

As to the larger message here, while the focus on politeness is very much a Japanese one (not that I think children being polite to adults is a bad thing), the idea that kids should be kids – and not mini-adults – is one I think most of us can get behind.  One way adolescents learn to be good adults is by being mentors to kids younger than them, which is something I think the Japanese understand better than most (it’s a country, after all, where 8 year-olds are expected to look after first-graders and make sure they get to and from school safely).  Yuushi has been a sponge for most of the series, learning from those older and wiser than he, so it’s nice to see him slip into the role of teacher (which he’s quite good at, as you’d expect).