Idolism has been a favorite topic in this updating of Gegege no Kitarou, which I guess isn’t all that surprising given how prevalent it is in modern Japanese society.  Within the boundaries of what it can get away with GGGnK has been about as unstinting as any anime in how it depicts the idol universe – in fact it can probably get away with more because of the great remove that exists between this franchise and the circle of Hell in the industry that idol anime inhabits.  But this week’s episode wasn’t too focused on the social commentary – it was pretty much a lark.

We’ve actually seen The Batteries before, but not with this much focus.  Specifically it’s Nickel Kana (ROFL) that’s at the center of the story, along with our old friend Tofu-Kozu.  Tofu-chan isn’t, if we’re honest, a character who lends himself to deep and profound storylines – he’s just, as he often says, a youkai who carries tofu.  Which even in the age of specialization is a pretty darn narrow niche for a sentient being to inhabit, I must say – though I guess with hundreds of millions of deities in Shinto, that will happen.

In my mind, I try to imagine the moment when someone in the writer’s room came up with “what if we make Tofu-Kozu an idol manager?”  It’s as if they came up with the most random theme-character pairing imaginable and ran with it, but that’s something this series has had very good luck with for the most part.  I’m also enjoying the fact that human-youkai interaction has become so routine now that they can literally bump into each other on the street, sit down and talk about life.

Kana is as complicated as Tofu-chan is straightforward – neurotic, a germaphobe and an introvert, someone who became an idol (which she frankly seems totally ill-suited for) to try and overcome the lingering pain of always being at the bottom of the clique rankings.  So why the hell shouldn’t Tofu-Kozu as her manager work?  And you know, it kind of does.  At least until Nezumi-otoko shows up and imparts his usual bad Karma onto everything – but even his initial idea (having Kana spoon-feed tofu to her fans to win a merchandising contest) actually worked a treat.  It was only because he got greedy and used the tofu with “youkai mold” on it (in a different universe I’d ask why Tofu-chan brought it in the first place) when his initial idea actually worked too well.