You’d probably need a backhoe to dig deep enough to find how far under the radar Waka Okami wa Shougakusei! is in the English-speaking anime world. But it continues to hum along in Japan – the novels sell, and the theatrical adaptation is on-schedule to premiere this fall. And it continues to hum along on-screen too, though if I’m honest this episode was the one I’d more or less been holding on for since the series premiered.
This episode didn’t represent quite the agonizing comedy of errors that the last TV episode about a hotel reviewer stopping by did, but then, Okko is no Basil Fawlty. She’s certainly had her share of screw-ups, but she’s learning. And apparently her entry in the baking competition has made her a bit of a celebrity in the (I’m guessing pretty tiny) hot springs ryokan community. So much so that the reviewer has specifically sought out Harunoya, and asks that Okko be the one to show him around.
The real point of all this, though, is that the conversation turns to Uri-bo when Okko lets a line about his help slip to the reviewer. And finally, we get a bit of his backstory fleshed out. As expected he and Mineko were friends as children – in Osaka no less. They were too young to be more that that when Mineko moved away, but they certainly would have been based on the fact that his spirit followed her all the way to Harunoya after he died (falling off the same roof she’d fallen from and would have died, had he not saved her). Mineko may not be able to see Uri-bo, but he’s certainly been watching over her these last 50 or 60 years.
It seems odd to say about a premise where the heroine’s parents died in a car crash, but Waka Okami really needed some pathos – and Uri-bo’s story definitely brings that. My fear is that now that his past is out there, it’s no longer going to be part of the plot (indeed, next week the focus turns to the Zashiki-warashi or poltergeist member of the cast), which I think would be a real shame. Uri-bo has been at this inn for a half-century watching over the girl he loved but unable to speak with her, and presumably when Okko gets a little older she’ll no longer be able to see him either. There’s a ton of potential for bittersweet development in this part of the story, and I sincerely hope Waka Okami explores it.
