Another stellar episode of Reiwa no Dara-san, which continues to walk the line between darkness and comedy just about perfectly. This is one of the season’s real all-rounders – vastly entertaining and easy to enjoy without skimping on substance. The balance on spot-on. And what’s interesting is that this isn’t a dark comedy per se. The darkness is dark and the comedy is not especially – they exist as separate and distinct elements of the series. You’d think that would be awkward or distracting but it really just works most of the time.
The usual flashback cold open is typically grisly. It also shows us that Yamatagi-madara was more in control of the situation in those fateful moments than I’d expected. The younger sister basically traded her soul for two hours to extract vengeance on the elder. And did she ever – and the parents besides, who were in on the whole thing. But she also made sure that Orochi was contained and didn’t wipe out the two villages. And that Jurota didn’t get himself cursed and die. Even in that state she could discern between the guilty and the guiltless – and she protected the latter (and by my reckoning there some limbs unaccounted for).
All sorts of interesting things are happening in the present too. First it turns our Kaoru-kun is a big fan of “Raging Rouge Gun Valsey“, which looks like some sort of tokusatsu-influenced mecha anime. He heads for Dara’s domain – with enough snacks to feed an elephant as offerings – to ask her to show him how to shoot a Valsey Beam. This she does using a variety of talismans she draws on his hands and indeed, if he holds his hands together and opens them just right, Kaoru can shoot off a beam.
I was about to be aghast at Dara showing an 11 year-old how to do such a thing but she says the beam is harmless and “just for show”. The only caution is it will exhaust him if overused as it feeds on his spirit energy. So naturally Kaoru copies the sigils before they can wash off and imprints them on gloves and promptly beams himself unconscious (and I’m sure there’s no other allegorical intent here). The next day (or so) we finally meet the siblings’ daddy, William. He is indeed an Australian – and blonde as all gaijins are, you know – and an opthamalogist.
We don’t get a whole lot of reveal about what William is actually like here (including his thoughts on how his wife dresses his son). He seems very nice and gets rather upset (as she predicted) when Hinata cuts herself (more on that shortly). The family heads off to visit some cousins at the seaside, and Kaoru is miffed that Dara-san can’t come with (she’d bound to her mountain, unsurprisingly). The sibs immediately head to the beach with their cousin the next day, and Hinata has a run-in with a local boy named Tomotaka who’s being bullied because he’s a believer in Watagame-sama, a local ocean Kami.
Hinata is sympathetic, as one would imagine. She even calls Dara-san but the latter has never heard of Watagame-sama and encourages Hinata to steer clear, as abandoned Gods are bad news. But yeah, we know that’s not going to happen. She scopes out the Kami’s old worship site and goes to check it out, where she finds Tomotaka waiting for her. Turns out his great-grandma is the last follower of the old ways, and he wants to restore Watagame to his rightful place while she’s still around. Hinata can see enough to know the cave he leads her to is bad news, but when Tomotaka charges blithely in she follows anyway.
Thank goodness the power of Dara-san’s tongue extends even outside her domain, because what was waiting in that cave was no Kami but a spiritual squatter, and serious trouble.. This incident (with minor injury) resolves in such a way that Watagame-sama might even be awoken by Tomotaka’s belief, but Kaoru-kun is extremely salty at being left out of the fun and takes his frustration out on the tongue charm. As a bonus, we get a full-on “Gun Valsey” ED – and it’s abundantly clear who the star of the show is.
ED 2:
