There’s always a certain sadness when a show as good as Kujima Utaeba Ie Hororo is almost totally ignored. Even when, as here, I knew with mortal certitude that it would be (in English at least). But this sort of series lends itself to a kind of exclusive club mentality too. It’s our little secret and everyone outside the 11 of us watching it (never mind writing about it) are the ones missing out. The past two episodes have been absolutely stellar, taking the series to a whole new level of enjoyment for me.
The nice thing with Kujima is that the manga is finished and a good length for one cour, so even if the adaptation isn’t a commercial sensation we’re still going to get the story as the mangaka intended it. I’ve always kind of felt like I knew where it was going to end up, but it was surprising to see it happen in the fourth episode. The elepnant(ine bird) in the room has always been that Kujima plans to go home to Russia. They love Maxim and miss him. And for Arata the moment that came was always going to be a painful one. I just didn’t expect it to come so soon.
The crucial point here is that Arata is lonely. He’s a lively child and he wants a lively and fun life, and his family just isn’t delivering that. After Kujima has a dream about Maxim and wakes up in tears, they say they want to go home (remember Kujima, is only three). Arata isn’t going to say no, even if he’s not being honest with himself, because he’s just a sweet kid and hates seeing Kujima hurting. So Arata sucks it up and smiles, even as it’s breaking him up inside. He also confirms that Kujima, in fact, swam to Japan from Russia (they can’t fly, and it would be pretty terrifying if they could).
Because he’s sure he can’t smile and say goodbye, Arata goes to school as usual on the morning Kujima is leaving. There he freaks out his classmates talking like Kujima in the funniest scene in the episode, a great performance by Murase Ayumu. While that’s happening the most moving scene of the ep is taking place at the house, where Suguru is surprised to see Kujima preparing to go. Obviously it isn’t easy for Suguru to say what he does to Kujima, given the persona he projects. But he does anyway, making it clear that he knows very well how much Arata has been hurting and how much of that is on him. This is not a broken family in an overtly dramatic sense, but there’s a kind of quiet sadness to them that I find really powerful.
Happily Suguru’s words move Kujima to reconsider – especially the observation about how much fun they seemed to be having. Kujima remembers what Maxim told them, that they could come home if things got too hard – but really, they haven’t been hard at all. Arata admits the truth to himself just as he finds Kujima hasn’t left after all. And he declares that to keep Kujima from feeling too sad, he’ll learn how to speak Russian (yeah, good luck with that, Kid) and cook Russian food. And he becomes irritated with Kujima for wanting to help, which Kujima can’t understand until Mom explains it to them.
The rest is just pure cuteness, pretty much. Arata is determined to do this on his own, and he chooses Borscht as his culinary debut (because it’s the only Russian food he knows). He goes shopping (alone) and chooses the ingredients, though Kujima can’t resist peeking at them while the boy goes upstairs to change. And is horrified to find that Arata bought radishes instead of beets, because the latter were unavailable. You can’t be too hard on him, he’s only 13, but beets are the single-most important ingredient in borscht. When Arata sees that radishes aren’t even red on the inside he knows it’s all slipping away from him. And one taste of the “finished” product is enough to send him scurrying to the cupboard for a curry roux.
It must be noted, that gets turned into a hilarious pun – Kujima exclaims “Curry roux!” and Arata hears “Kareru!” – “I’m done with you!”. But all’s well that ends well – curry is fine, after all. And as Kujima already explained, the first blini is always a lump. And he proceeds to give Arata some much-needed cooking lessons, culminating with the pair of them making borscht with beets Mom buys off the internet. That’s how it should be – food tastes better when you cook it with someone you love. That sad moment I’m dreading still looms on the horizon, but at least we have a while before it gets here.
