Fair to say this is working for me. Reiwa no Dara-san balances its tonal extremes very well, especially when it juxtaposes humor and tragedy/horror. Which it does as a lot, as of course those are the two pillars of the story. The similarities to Kaya-chan Isn’t Scary in terms of vibe (they’re also both 2022 series of similar length) are very real for me, and that was a show I wound up liking quite a lot. Dara-san definitely weights the humor more heavily – at least so far – but I think the two series are spiritual cousins of modern seinen animanga horror.

We’re very much still in the expansion phase at this point, and that applies to three main threads. Dara-san’s past, and each of Kaoru and Hinata’s daily lives. We’ve gotten more of Kaoru’s up to now but both siblings were in focus this week. Kaoru, for starters, asks Dara to “illustrate” the story of her past for him. She pretty much never says no – you sense that carried over from her human personality. And since what she knows about the modern world comes mostly from manga, that’s the approach she takes (“it’s become trendy to retell the classics”, ROFL).  It’s interesting that Kaoru is so interested – I think it reflects a serious side he doesn’t show overtly.

We also meet a couple of Kaoru-kun’s classmates, most significantly Tomita-san. The implication here is that she’s descended from Dara’s sister’s line in the eastern village, though there’s no indication she has any role in the shrine hierarchy now. What Tomita does have is a crush on Kaoru, and she’s irked to hear he spent the night at “a friend of his sister’s”. Especially when she finds out that the “friend’s” dimensions are what stick out for Kaoru, literally and figuratively.

As for Hinata, for starters we find out she’s into Gunpla (which tracks). In fact she brings a kit over to Dara’s house (apparently there was a “house hunting” chapter the anime skipped) for them to work on together. The takeaway from this conversation is Dara-san’s comment about how she envied Kaoru having a sister like Hinata (understandably). Hinata also makes it clear to Dara that Kaoru considers her to be very important – even if Hinata plays it for laughs it’s obvious this is important to her in terms of looking out for her younger brother.

We meet a couple of Hinta’s classmates (she’s a 2nd-year) too. Including Hasegawa Amane, who’s destined for a major role in the story. For the first time we get narrative from the POV of Orochi, the serpent ayakashi (he’s played with comedic relish by Ohtsuka Houchuu). He’s been trying for decades to escape through reincarnation via the tendrils of his power escaping through gaps in the seal, but he kept winding up as a turtle. So he switches tacks to possession, choosing a 12 year-old Amane as his target.

But Amane proves incapable of handling that much power and goes into a yearlong coma, during which Orochi physically ages her up to about 16 (which the middle-schoolers certainly notice). She arrives as a transfer student and is immediately interested in Hinata. Not because Orochi recognizes her as the priestess’ line – Amane has no clue she’s being possessed – but because she has a lingering crush on Hinata from their kindergarten days. She thought Hinata was a boy then (who wouldn’t), and Hinata has no recollection of who she is, but none of that matters to Amane now.

So to recap, we have Kaoru being targeted by a shotacon mangaka (who at least seems willing to wait) and a classmate descended from Dara-san’s betrayer-sister-murderer, and Hinata by an adult-sized but child-brained classmate who likes guys but is willing to make an exception for her. Appropriately random for Reiwa no Dara-san, which seems very much at home in the realms of the outlandish (and that’s toned down considerably in the anime version). Even knowing we’re headed for a likely read-the-manga ending I’m very curious to see where all this is headed.