It’s a bit of a strange feeling, watching anime as open about emotion as Yuzuki-san Chi no Yonkyoudai..  The fact that it’s shoujo more or less gives it license to be so, but we don’t get much shoujo in anime these days.  And what we get tends to be shoujo romance, where the kind of emotional exchanges depicted here aren’t all that common.  The important thing with Yuzuki-san Chi is that it manages to be open without being maudlin or even melodramatic (which isn’t the pejorative term most anime fans seem to think anyway).  There’s a real authenticity to the writing and that’s the key factor helping the show succeed.

Having devoted most of the first two eps to the problems of the two middle brothers (especially Minato) this one deep dives with the bookends (especially Gakuto).  Gakuto is certainly an idealized character, one might even say in a distinctly shoujo way – there aren’t a lot of four year-olds like that walking around.  But as someone who was a precocious child who usually preferred the company of adults to that of other kids, for me he rings true.  That passage where he marvelled that Kirishima Koujirou (Tachiki Fumihiko no less) actually bothered to introduce himself especially hit home.  By God, I know exactly what Gakuto was feeling there.

Koujirou is the key figure in this week’s drama, someone we knew was a factor in the Yuzukis’ lives but not why.  Before his daughter and grandkids moved back to town he was basically a lonely old man, silently wishing he could help the poor kids next door who lost their parents.  That’s not an easy approach to make, and Hayato is obviously not the type to ask for favors (or easily accept them).  Gakuto for his part hates being such a burden on Hayato (still a college student in the flashbacks) but lacks the nerve to tell his brother that he’s fine transferring to a kindergarten with an after-school program so Hayato doesn’t have to race home from college every day to meet him.

The catalyst is an exhausted Hayato falling asleep at school, with sympathetic friends not wanting to wake him up.  This is the moment for Koujirou to intervene, and he proffers an invitation to wait inside his place.  The key to the relationship between Koujirou and Gakuto is very simple – Koujirou doesn’t condescend to Gakuto.  He doesn’t talk down to him, and (this was another part that rang true) Gakuto loves that an adult is treating him like an equal (more or less).  Rather than the kiddie DVDs Koujirou bought as a means to try and establish a rapport with the local kids (which is pretty sad when you stop and think about it) it’s period dramas that the two bond over.  And eventually shogi…

It’s quite telling that Hayato initially refuses Koujirou;’s offer to look after Gakuto after school.  Sure one might be suspicious of a neighbor they don’t know well making that offer but that’s not the issue here – the problem is that Hayato is so obsessed with proving he can fill every need in his brothers’ lives that accepting help is an admission of defeat.  Even adult parents need help sometimes (that’s what day care is for) but this is another aspect in which Hayato isn’t ready for all the responsibility being thrown at him.  And judging by the events of the premiere he still hasn’t totally find the right balance yet.