It was pretty clear from the premiere that Reiwa no Dara-san was kind of out there. But this second episode certainly confirmed it. I kind of like that it doesn’t seem to have any guardrails, and because it doesn’t take itself too seriously none of this is profoundly disturbing or anything. Weird, yes, and creepy in a certain way. But again it’s all done with such irreverence that it really doesn’t come off that way.
The focus of this episode is strongly on Kaoru-kun. And again, it was already clear that he was kind of a weird kid. But that’s nothing next to the people he associates with. First there’s the teacher (played by Sugita Tomokazu) who seems for all the world like a molester type. That’s certainly got Dara-san both curious and concerned (she’s not fooling anybody, she’s already protective of the siblings – especially the little one). The reality is a little different – turns out he designs and sells cosplay outfits (and wears them, one suspects) and Kaoru is a talented artist who helps him out. You can guess who the current design is based on.
I’m not sure – and this is a definite theme of the episode – that I would call this “harmless”. I mean, it’s not like the teacher can tell anybody this is going on. Kaoru is an odd one. He’s clearly interested in females – I think you could even use “precociously” in that sense. And his tastes seem to run towards the edgy, even at eleven. But he seems not at all bothered at the way his mother (who we still haven’t seen) dresses him. The vibe at this point is basically that he and Hinata have raised themselves and grown up kind of feral, but wound up being entirely nice children – just weird and utterly fearless, with no sense of decorum.
They’ve also been asking questions about who Dara-san of Reiwa really is, though she doesn’t seem bothered by their curiosity. Her backstory is the dark side of this series, and the local history almost echoes Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu. There was a human love interest it seems – a handsome carpenter from the wealthier Nishimura who visited the Higashimura she’d been exiled to by her family because of her supposes ugliness, in order to build her a hut. But now it’s pretty clear she’s Kaoru’s type, and her own feelings on this are already starting to be confused (understandably so).
She’s got competition, though. Kaoru is obsessed with procuring Dara underwear and fears if he takes any more of his mother’s he’ll get caught. So Dara-san is naturally curious what the little scamp is up to, and discovered that he plans to codge them from a lady mangaka. This one makes the whole teacher thing look positively pure by comparison. She’s an androphobe and Kaoru is the only boy she can talk to. Which, one gathers, is important for research purposes. But mainly, she’s warm for his form and has already mapped out a marriage arrangement when he graduates high school. Dara-san does the math and comes up with girigiri safe but – as the narrator says – I think she’s grading way too leniently.
This is all dancing on a very fine tightrope tonally speaking, no question about it. At this point though I would say it’s doing so successfully – the sheer audacity of it is LOL funny at times. And there is a certain wholesomeness to the way the siblings are so totally unconcerned with any of Dara-san’s baggage and see her as the decent soul she actually is. In other words I like Reiwa no Dara-san, even if at this point I’m not totally sure what to make of it.
