There are certain shows where, even as I find myself really getting into them, I realize they’re going to be totally ignored. I kind of felt that way about Hoozuki no Reitetsu of course and look at how that turned out (though it was mostly ignored in English). That series wound up being a massive commercial success, driven mostly by its huge popularity with female otaku and BL fans (something I still don’t really understand, to be honest). It’s pretty safe to say that’s not going to happen here, though I have no doubt Dekin no Mogura will achieve more popularity at home than abroad.

The bottom line is, I kind of love this. I love Mogura’s meandering yet fast-paced monologues. I love the weird character designs and art style. I love the way it sends me scrambling to Google to look up the cultural references, something no one can do like Eguchi Natsumi. I love the authenticity of Maki and Yae’s angsty conversations. In point of fact the unlikely merging of grounded realism and absurdist fantasy is one of the most compelling things in these first two episodes, though it has a lot of competition.

Mogura telling the kids about his war experiences took the series in a very different direction tonally, something that would happen multiple times in this episode. Comparing that with Maki wearing gun-themed t-shirts and talking about playing FPS games was a cutting moment, but Mogura didn’t rub his nose in it. Sure he wants his spirit flame, but I think the key takeaway from this was his comment about the importance of having someone to talk to. He wants Maki to realize how lucky he is, for starters. Having no one to vent to possibly for a very long time has made Mogura a bit crazy but the thing is, he’s totally aware of that.

Things then veer into the silly and madcap, with Mogura helping Maki and his boss at the ¥100 shop, Sukekiyo (yeah, I had to look it up) catch a shoplifter. Maki tells Yae-chan (lucky boy) about his frustrations at work, and she asserts that her cafe job is pretty low-stress. She also notes that they’ve added a new part-timer, a 15 year-old named Inukai Shio (Fujita Akane). That will prove an important development, as the pictures from Shio’s welcome party reveal a bushel of spirits to Yae and Maki (which Mogura had of course warned them might happen).

When the kids go to Mogura Bathhouse to let him know about this, Mogura is singing “Get Wild” (yeah, I had to look it up). Spirits are a subject he obviously knows well, and he lectures the kids on why spirits are – generally – not something to be feared. They’re humans, he says, who just want to have fun – and everyone perceives them differently. As for Shio’s spirits, they could either be connected to the cafe itself or to the girl. To find out which a scouting mission is engaged (on which Mogura runs up a huge tab on Maki’s dime). He determines that the spirits are drawn to Shio specifically – a good thing, since he can deal with them in a more low-key setting.

Telling Shio is a concern, but it needn’t have been because she’s as dumb as a stump (as illustrated in hilarious fashion). Here things take yet another tonal turn, becoming much darker. Some of the spirits are nice enough to leave when told. But not all of them. Mogura equates that exception to a stalker – and a stalker isn’t just going to leave when asked to. With humans you can call the cops, for for a spirit stalker who you gonna call? An exorcist of course – and Mogura says he has connections in that area, a good thing since they’re expensive.

What’s interesting here is that even as things take a bit of a horror movie turn, Mogura resists calling the spirit evil – just “needy”. And as Maki and Yae deduce, it seems very likely he exhausted his spirit fire during the war not on himself, but others. So what did this seemingly compassionate man do to cause himself to be banished from the afterlife? That answer will have to wait for a later time – perhaps much, much later – but I’m happy to accompany him and his new crew on their  journey in the meantime.