Kobato 06-07: Hide and Seek Super Fun Plot Explosion

This is Kobato looking for the plot, luckily 30 seconds later she found it but not before tripping on it of course!

After a long ridiculous week at work (thought technically I still have tomorrow to go) I was pretty happy to come home to Kobato. After the firefly episode my heart has completely melted to Kobato’s adorable and ridiculous charms. I’m actually technically all caught up now but I’ll be away for the weekend visiting some friends so you get double the Kobato goodness right away.

Finally in BOTH of these episode was some real plot! I was so happy I invented my own short commemorative dance for this which mostly involved doing the dance from Morning Musume’s Renai Revolution at the same time as wiggling. In these episodes we play hide and seek with Kobato, find out what is up with Iroyogi being a stuffed animal, meet a handful of magical creatures, go to college, and that’s not all – we even get to see a new side of Fujimoto! I’m serious, plot coming out all over the place in these two episodes! So without further ado…

Fujimoto is shocked this episode is full of plot.

It turns out the the whole nursery is going on a trip today! Fujimoto is carrying a cooler a bit confused as to why Kobato doesn’t seem to have anything with her. She realizes she left her bag in the other room so she runs to get it but the phone rings!

“This is Hanato Kobato! You’ve reached the 1970′s please trip acid and try again”

The man on the other line has a smooth, smooth voice so it’s pretty obvious he’s evil. And it’s true. He turns out to be the debt collector that’s been calling Sayaka-sensei. The one who sent the thugs from the previous episode.

Mysterious: You’re doing it right

We don’t get to see his face but he’s obviously super evil by the amount of shadows on him and the width of his shoulders. That’s a judge of evilness in CLAMP manga I can assure you. Check out Fuma’s shoulders for proof! He tells Kobato she’ll be out of a job soon and hangs up on her.

Do not tell Sayaka-sensei that there’s an evil man extorting money out of her even though she already knows it.

Fujimoto-san tells Kobato not to let on that anything is wrong. I don’t really agree with him but I’m starting to think he has all these part time jobs to pay off this evil loan or something? Kobato agrees sheepishly.

It’s like the Matrix but with telephones – wait.

Iroyogi-san decides to do some background work while Kobato has fun on the trip. He disappears into a vortex in a telephone pole to visit a bear. You think I’m joking but I’m just not.

I think he’s a bear. Please feel free to correct me in my attempts at species identification.

This bear is a baker in a storybook house. He also apparently used to have minions and be evil. Iroyogi needs him to collect information on the nursery. The bear agrees because he likes Iroyogi (who doesn’t) but he thinks it’s silly to care about Kobato. Probably is but that never stopped anyone from doing anything ever before. Plus she’s cute.

MEANWHILE in a place with no talking animals!

Everyone is having a good time but Kobato is still uneasy about the phone call. Marina-chan, one of the cuter children, notices and wants to cheer her up.

“I am not always spacy!”

Fujimoto tries to remind Kobato not to say anything about what she knows but it really all just comes out as insults.

I’m in your house, eatin’ your bread

Also aside from getting information from him Iroyogi-san eats bread. This has no relevance to the story but it was my favorite moment from the episode <3

Hide and seek, but isn’t Kobato the opposite of an oni?

Everyone plays hide and seek with Kobato as “it” but of course she’s so bad at it and looks in strange places. That’s okay because more plot is on it’s way!

Bringing home the “bacon” to Kobato.

and now this is happening!

A bunny shows up, but he’s the exact opposite of Usagi-san. His name is Ginsei and he’s apparently an old rival of Iroyogi! I knew that someone would be missing an eye. Clearly Ginsei will become my favorite character just like all the other people missing eyes! (Wantanuki, Syaoran, Subaru, Fai, etc.)

Tiny dog, big flame

Iroyogi puts Ginsei in his place but Ginsei vows to take revenge on him. My heart swells with joy.

This is really cute so I thought she was doing it on purpose at first.

Turns out Kobato is pretty bad at hide and seek. That’s okay though when Fujimoto calls all the kids to come out Kobato is overjoyed to “find” them. The look of sheer joy on Kobato’s face is heartwarming.

Only 11 kids for a nursery, no wonder they have no money.

Everyone gathers up to leave but Marina-chan is missing! Kobato and Fujimoto run to go find her and see something in the distance.

I thought this was suppose to be a happy show!

Turns out she was asleep…

Awwww, that’s just cute.

When they wake up Marina-chan she tells them she was just trying to find something to cheer Kobato up which is a cute sentiment until you realize she’s 5 and she could have been nabbed in the park without a second thought.

Smile!

They try to take a picture with the group to remember the day but Kobato freaks out so everyone is starring at her in the picture.

Turns out you fell asleep in a bed of four leaf clovers, clearly you’re now full of luck. In 20 years you’ll own Japan!

This cheers up the bummed out Marina and Kobato by a wide margin. Everyone takes a real picture and they all go home happy presumably with many four leaf clovers. Unfortunately even when she gets home Iroyogi-san is not home and Kobato imagines he’s stuck somewhere or fell down a hole!

“What if he’s stuck in an automatic door? I saw on FOX that they can kill you!”

Iroyogi is unharmed and returns just in time to laugh at Kobato for being ridiculous. She gives him the clover and goes to sleep. Iroyogi then flashes back to the conversation he had with the bird who works for the bear. Okay that’s a weird sentence.

Delivering bad news in a flashback makes it better.

Sayaka-sensei’s father passed away but not before getting mixed up with a debt to some bad man who are harassing her. I think we already could have guessed that but if not, the bird told us. The episode finishes with Sayaka looking pretty bummed out about the whole thing.

I bet she’s also wishing magical bears baked her some bread.

At least they can reuse the same animation for him every episode.

The next episode opens with the melancholy of Fujimoto-san. He’s fixing some old chairs that have broken in the nursery and Sayaka thinks he’s working himself too hard.

“By painting only blue chairs and letting me paint only pink ones you’re just reinforcing gender sterotypes”

Kobato is trying to understand why Fujimoto won’t let her help out with the loan issues that Sayaka faces. Fujimoto gets really pissed off at her of course and tries to ignore her while she drips paint all over herself and flails about.

These children have better advice than most.

The kids tell her that when their parents yell at them (like Fujimoto yells at her) they’re trying to help them learn lessons. I could be cynical about this but it’s probably a pretty valid point and Fujimoto doesn’t seem outwardly malicious, he’s just very stern.

I lost the cap before this where she finds Fujimoto’s report. So now she has it MAGICALLY. Sorry, too lazy to go back and get the cap.

Since Fujimoto’s paper falls out of his bag Kobato is determined to return it but she’s not exactly sure what college is and when she does understand she freaks out because there’s a lot of people there.

This is either really cute or very scary. I can’t tell at all -.-

Kobato does her best and she looks around everywhere she can getting trampled by people left and right outside of classrooms, on the football field, and even in the library.

“Admit you’re lost and go ask for directions!”

I’ll just stare at this random window…oh, look!

A lucky break means that Kobato sees Fujimoto talking to a friend through a window and she runs to get to him quickly.

She runs head first into this man.

The person she bumps into turns out to be nice guy, Takahashi Domoto, who is friends with Fujimoto. He’s way nice. Too nice. Eerie creepy nice. But he does offer to help her and she takes him up on the offer.

Cuteness Break!

Back at the nursery Chitose and the twins have come to help entertain the kids while Fujimoto and Kobato are out playing college. I mean doing things.

But that’s not important because we’re still looking for Fujimoto!

Domoto doesn’t find Fujimoto in the library or in front of the school boards but he does offer to help a few people along the way. Turns out he’s the type of guy you can count on for favors. He even does a favor for a guy in his class while they’re looking for Fujimoto.

Why won’t Sayaka take her help?

Back at the nursery, part two. Chitose is trying to give Sayaka papers on loans and advice but Sayaka really doesn’t seem to want to hear it. I feel kind of bad for Chitose because she obviously came very well prepared to help a friend out.

“No”

Kobato and Domoto finally find our missing friend as he is rejecting to help two girls on a paper because they cut class. He’s particularly rude about it so Kobato gets pissed off at him.

“I just spent all episode trying to give you this! STAY STILL DAMN IT!”

She tells him off about helping people out but he just leaves. Domoto tells Kobato that he envies Fujimoto because he has the ability to say no when he doesn’t agree with people. Domoto on the other hand is a door mat.

This screencap made it look awkward but it’s really cute.

Kobato tells him there’s merit in helping people and we have to learn from out mistakes about which people we help and which ones we don’t. I smiled because I feel like this is a growing moment for her she’s not just telling him, she’s telling herself (I hope). Then she tells him that Iroyogi yells at her because he’s looking out for her…and then she explain he’s a talking stuff animal so later on she gets yelled at of course!

She’s so HAPPY while being scolded.

But she did get another “candy” for healing Domoto’s heart! Success right?

THIRTY?! But…but…she got a candy!

“I said you were helpful”

This is Fujimoto’s way of saying thank you. Awww. He does have real people feelings after all!

Kobato has NO IDEA what just happened there.

Final Thoughts:

-Woah! What a crazy amount of plot just got dumped on me. I love it! Bring on the plot! More I say.

-Now we’re 3 episodes in without that alligator showing up again, I haven’t forgotten production team, don’t let me down!

-I really wasn’t that interested in Iroyogi having a backstory but now that I’ve met a magical bear, bird, and bunny I’m kind of intrigued. They all used to be bad guys? Together?

-Sorry I’m totally zonked out at the end of this big entry and busy week! So I have no thoughts in my head really. These were much better episodes than the past few and I can’t wait to watch episode 8 next week!

Til next time~