Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin – 04

Things take a bit of a mellower turn on Mayonaka this week, which I was actually sort of glad to see.  The horror two-parter with the Chinese hopping vampires was a good one, but I’d rather see this series not go quite that dark every time out.  There’s a sort of laid-back charm here that I quite like, and which plays well into the idea that for the guys in the office, all this stuff is just daily life.  And with all of Tokyo to use as a playground, the series has seemingly endless ground to farm here – sort of an urban version of Natsume Yuujinchou.

It seems as if the bromance between Arata and – well, I guess I have to decide whether to call him Kohaku or Huehuecóyotl – is going to continue apace.   There’s something weirdly appealing about watching a coyote playing with a cat, but in truth there aren’t many more troublesome – and dangerous – than people whose primary enemy is boredom.  For Arata this friendship is going to be the embodiment of the Chinese “may you live in interesting times” curse, but in his line of work I can also see occasions where a friend like that could come in very handy.

This time around the boys are on their yearly check-ins for six Kabukicho Anothers, with reports to be written about them (this is still Japan after all).  They range from Chinese monkey youkai called Shojo who do nothing but drink sake, to a hyena who “came over with the Americans during the war” (which I don’t quite get – hyenas are from Africa).  But the main attraction is #1 on the list, who’s been missing since the war – Kio-Gongen, the Kami of the local shrine (Inarikiou Jinja).  Whether it’s due to coincidence or Arata’s presence he picks this night to re-appear, and he kidnaps a local beat cop named Haguro-san who has the ability to see (but not speak to) Anothers.

In its lighthearted way, this subplot reflects on the enormous gap in perception that exists between humans and youkai.  To him, nabbing a human to be a drinking buddy for a century is no big deal (would Haguro live that long, being in a God’s presence?).  Kohaku offers his “assistance” but his notion to set up a drinking contest seems like a pretty bad idea from the outset.  Unless of course you buy the idea that he figured he’d be joining it in the end whatever happens, and the rest of it was – like everything else – just for his amusement.

RobiHachi – 04

I’m probably not going to be covering RobiHachi after this week, but I’ll keep up with it as a viewer for now so it’s not impossible I could change my mind.  It’s fun, I like it, but it just doesn’t interest me enough to want to write about it every week.  At this point easily my favorite (well, I like the salty bunnybot too) part of this series are Yang and his two doofus henchmen.  Every scene with them is appealingly random.

Also – I’m that guy who obsessively Googles restaurant reviews before he picks a place to eat…