At this point it’s no news flash that Reiwa no Dara-san is one of the big upside performers of the season (though I did have it as a sleeper). My main sleeper in fact, and it was a great season for me there – I hit Sayonara Lara and Uchi no Otouto-san too. But I’d go further and say this show is the surprise love story of the season too. Because really, that’s what this is. Those two kids and Dara-san have one of the most heartwarming relationships I can remember in anime for a long time. Doing what this show does – both in terms of horror and kink – and still earning the “heartwarming” badge may be the greatest achievement in terms of balancing acts in a season with quite a few of them.
Hinata and Kaoru are both great, but Kaoru is just a comic menace. He’s totally unfiltered and a total force of nature. The thing is, one imagines Dara-san probably dreamed of having children (with Jurouta no doubt) and had that taken away from her. Even if she doesn’t remember details from her human life (like her name) something that elemental would have stuck with her. The kids love her in a totally non-judgmental way like only children can, validating everything that’s good and decent about her which she probably came to doubt herself. But she loves them too (and they know it). Dara did promise to protect Chiyo’s bloodline, but this goes deeper than that.
As witness the whole Santa thing. Protecting is one thing, but dressing up in a (kinky) Santa suit and delivering gifties is strictly an elective course for Dara-san. She’s doing it because she wants to. Kaoru schlepping a cart full of stuff up the mountain and making a maid cafe is not a pain or an annoyance for her – she plays along because she loves playing along. Kaoru – in the timeless manner of charming scamps – knows exactly how much he can get away with and happily pushes the envelope every chance he gets. And if it weren’t for him, Dara-san would surely never gotten to see how Japanese curry actually tastes. There are gifts passing both ways here.
The culmination of the Xmas chapter is Dara-san coming into Kaoru’s room and finding him wrapped up in ribbons – we don’t actually get an explanation for that one – and sleeping with a Dara hug pillow wearing a very different sort of outfit from factory spec. Kaoru then weaves in and out of sleep hilariously, for long enough to banter with Dara-san and beg for a hand-forged letter-opener of his own after Hinata gets one. But it’s not only the siblings who Santa pays a visit to this Christmas Eve – Dara doesn’t forget her other worshipper in that house.
Indeed, in addition to our usual time traveling this week we get a visit to the much more recent past. In the origin story we finally learn the name of Kanju’s disciple, Nagi. He passes away after the initial heavy lifting is done, leaving the final preparations for the arrival of the new Mountain God in her hands. She doesn’t go easy on Jurouta, that’s for sure. Then we see more or less the original story of Yamatagi-Madara’s connection to the modern-day Misogiya clan. Chiyo is obviously an eccentric too based on Kaoru, but she seems to have been level-headed as a kid at least. Her constant tending of the shrine gets her some unwanted attention, and it falls to Yamatagi-Madara to save her one very memorable night in the hospital.
Chiyo certainly never forgot it, though that was Dara’s intention. You can hear the sadness in her voice when she says she probably won’t see Dara-san again herself, and it’s a reminder that one day her children will lose that ability too. Until then the pair of them are living this relationship at light speed, tirelessly cramming as much fun and camaraderie into it as they can. Dara’s abode on the other side isn’t lavishly decorated – the kids do their part with a beanbag chair – but what she chooses to accent her place tells you everything about where her heart lies.
