Sunday 29 September 2013

Completed: The Eccentric Family [updated]

Aka Uchoten kazoku

Dear NISA,

Please license this show, cause it's really good and i would love to own it in one of your lovely boxsets.

Sincerely,
Kat

this is the last show i ended up watching this season.
and it is my favorite.

Based off a novel The eccentric family is a show about the balance of Tanuki, humans and Tengu in kyoto.

Tanuki, raccoon dogs, roam the earth and tend to be pranksters.
Human fill the cities and tend to only care for themselves but can show compassion to others.
Tengu fly the sky... and seem to be highly respected by tanuki.

The story focuses on yasaburo, a tanuki that doesn't want to be just a 'mere' tanuki and enjoys tranforming into a bunch of different humans.... he loves living among them.
However living near humans is always a risk, it could more then likely end up with you being boiled in a hot pot by the friday fellows if they catch you.
however either do to confidence or arrogance Yasaburo does his best to just have a good time.

He lives with his mother and two of his brothers, the third is stuck in the form of a frog and never leaves his well. His father ended up in a hot pot a few years back but there is a mystery as to how such a powerful tanuki got himself caught.

The show is very 'slice of life' in the fact that we are really just going day to day with yasaburo but there is an overarching plot. We find out what exactly happened to his father, we need to pick a new leader for the tanuki... we need to find out how a human girl named benten fits into all this and why everyone is so terrified of her. we also need to find out who will be boiled in the hot pot this year.

someone could argue that not much happens but i don't care... i love it. Much like Natsume's book of friends it has a sweetness to it that make me cry so fast even i'm shocked by it. yet nothing outwardly tragic is happening... it doesn't do the "here's the sad music to let you know it's sad" in fact a lot of the time the music is uplifting or quiet which makes it even more sad.

But yeah... the art is lovely (though still not a fan of how the ears are done) the music is lovely... the story is sweet and funny and, if you couldn't tell, really japanese and may require some extra research to figure out what the hell some of them are going on about... but in the end i was smiling the entire time and i'm sad that it's over.

oh... and the ending song Que Sera Sera by Fhana (thana? i've seen it both ways) is just so lovely and fits the feel perfectly.
so yeah... even though i can tell this kind of slice of life show isn't for everyone it is easily one of my favs and i would love to own it (again in a pretty NISA box set with artbook would be just the cherry on top)
but considering the amount of crap we got this season... for me this was a breath of fresh air and was one of the only shows i was excited for when it uploaded.
you can watch it all on Crunchyroll 

Edit: Oct 25/2013
NISA actualyl did license this show.... i cannot describe the amount of happy that news made me

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