At this point I would say I’m pretty close to pot-committed on Reiwa no Dara-san. Maybe just one more ep to make sure, but bottom line is, I like this series a lot. It would be obvious to say it recalls Kaya-chan wa Kawakunai, but there are some similar elements there – not least the visual style. Most importantly I think is that the two shows have an extremely wide tonal and thematic range, and those extremes often clash in discordant fashion. Which, you know, I really like as a rule.

We get a further exploration of Dara-san’s backstory in this episode. And it’s dark, as you would expect. The name of the carpenter we briefly saw last week was Jurota. Indeed he was in love with the younger sister, and indeed the older sister was jealous. That envy grew and grew and became a lure to curses and entities which thrive on such things. She concocted a scheme to blame the younger sister for all this, which everyone bought at sticker price. We don’t see the ending just yet, but it’s not hard to guess how things likely turned out.

Given all that, Dara being a resentful spirit is hardly surprising. In fact what’s notable is that she’s as nice as she is. In the present the kids continue to treat her as a weird aunt, and eventually Dara is forced to give them a means to contact her via cell phone (she’s a modern curse entity) rather than kick up a fuss and risk  drawing attention every time they want to talk to her. There follows a very Dara-esque (read: funny and edgy) conversation about what swimsuit Kaoru wears to the pool, which further cements the impression that the whole situation with his upbringing is more than a little odd. Kaoru then gifts Dara a priestess outfit (presumably a gift from Fudegi-sensei) and a group photo is taken (Dara-san can make herself photo-visible – and selectively to whoever she chooses – at will).

At this point a pair named Saeko and Masatsugu arrive in the woods, and it soon becomes clear that she’s the current shrine priestess (she calls Masatsugu “Uncle”). Dara-san spirits away (kamikakushi) the siblings – which they take with their usual aplomb – to avoid detection. Saeko has no spiritual ability, it seems, but we’re once more reminded that Hinata does – she has the ability to co-exist between both worlds, which anyone with sensitivity would have noticed. As for Masatsugu the only thing we know about him is that he loves bugs, but the pair of them generally seem inoffensive enough.

It’s time for the shrine festival, and Dara-san – in civilian human cosplay this time – accompanies the children down to the village. All seems idyllic enough apart from their kid energy running her ragged. But there’s trouble brewing, in the form of a couple of YouTubers whose schtick is chasing down supposed cursed places (such channels exist aplenty here, unfortunately). But they’re getting more than they bargained for with this one. They go where they’re not supposed to, and unseal the shrine and desecrate the enshrined cursed object – Dara-san’s arm, all that remains of her human form. And any way you slice it, what happens afterwards is not pretty.

This is grim, no question. But I think it’s pretty clear those two – the girl at least – were doomed the moment they snipped that padlock. On initial read what Dara does might seem terrifying, but she was almost surely doing nothing more than trying to prevent anyone else from sharing their fate. If they went down the mountain they would pass the curse to their families and friends. And if that video had gone out, it would have drawn more rubberneckers to the mountain. Dara-san may be a stable and even compassionate being in her current form, but getting involved with her tragic past is obviously extremely dangerous.

Finally, we meet who I assume to be Kaoru and Hinata’s mother, Chiyo. Setting aside subjecting her son to her own fetishes, the initial read on Chiyo is positive. She seems to have a grasp on Dara-san’s true nature, and is acting mainly to keep anyone else from being hurt by her lingering curse. Of the siblings’ father there’s no sign, and why we see so little of Chiyo is not yet clear. But she appears to be closely connected to the truth of what this place and its enshrined deity are, and that makes her a crucial player in the story.