Kamisama Dolls episode 06 – Home Sweet Home

The village of Karakami turns out to be a pretty peaceful place despite the power struggle between the two major families, at least while the characters are there. The episode goes pretty uneventfully as far as major plot goes, only dropping one or two hints about characters’ pasts or current events. But it does set some things up for future episodes (and probably gets some things out of the way too.)

Hmmm that village kind of looks familiar….

Aiiishiiiiii, aishiau no sa moto…

But a demon lurks in this village…

Utao, Kyouhei, and Hibino meet with Moyako and her grandfather to assess the damage to Kukuri and begin repairs. Moyako is another classmate of Kyouhei’s and speaks for her nearly-silent grandfather, but we don’t get much from or about her except that she’s next in line to take over the family kakashi mechanic trade and seemed momentarily concerned about Aki (hands off, bitch, Aki belongs to Kuuko! OTP! OTP!) Which is kind of a shame because I liked what little we’ve seen of her. Her younger sister Yurako similarly doesn’t get much elaboration except that she has a MASSIVE YURI CRUSH on Utao (or so my sources tell me) and won’t let go of her the whole time. The visitors are shown around the repair shop for a bit, and during the repair process it’s confirmed that the kakashi are mechanical devices but enhanced with magical properties. Special resins called ‘blood of the gods’ allow a Seki to interface with the machine, and special, networked trees provide the wood that forms the bodies, it also possessing magical properties.

If she can pick up his temperament she’ll be a fine chief mechanic one day.

Yes, learn to curse like a sailor and you will truly become the heir to this place!

Everybody loves Utao. Some a bit more forcefully than others.

DO EEEEEETTTT.

They don’t seem to be above innovation for such a traditional place. Plenty of metal pieces mixed in with the wooden ones.

Individually the main three get pieces of information in the meanwhile. Hibino goes for a walk in the sacred forest with Moyako, a place where the trees are interconnected. And so are the humans, able to partially read each others’ minds when within. She’s overcome by a memory of Aki that she can’t understand but feels intensely sad about regardless. Elsewhere, Utao gets confirmation from her grandfather that Kirio is her brother, and that the Hyuga took him away in secret, but beyond that not much else is revealed. Kyouhei gets angry with his father over not raising the issue after he found out but that is left unresolved for now. Kirio and Koushiro also return to the village to rest up and get Takemikazuchi repaired. Koushiro takes Kirio to his home to stay and introduces him to his wife. Which makes me worry about Koushiro now that I’ve started liking him since him being happily married feels like a potential death flag. But things seem good at the moment. Koushiro cooks dinner for the three of them while Kirio takes a bath, revealing the scars on his back likely from whipping at the hands of the Hyuga as they trained him. He also ponders for a moment why he gets so angry at Utao which lays the groundwork for him becoming a not-such-a-bad-guy character. Utao meanwhile wonders about him while she’s out putting the newly-repaired Kukuri through its paces. She asks Moyako about being a big sister, and even Hibino despite her being an only child. The tests go well and Kukuri seems back to normal so Utao decides to go flying for a bit with Kyouhei and Hibino. Kyouhei doesn’t mind but Hibino is terrified, even more so when Utao gets distracted and flips Kukuri over. What follows is Utao hanging from Hibino who’s hanging from Kyouhei, fanservicey shirt pulling and all. Finally, before the group is set to leave, Hibino and Kyouhei go for a walk which turns rainy, another chance to show off Hibino’s ‘huge tracts of land.’ But it’s not so bad, and they get to talking about what happened with Aki and their sensei just as the episode ends.

While the story needs to move on from the village, I’d have liked to see more of Koushiro’s home life.

Oh man, that Moyako face.

Moyako, what is best in life?

To crush your imouto, to see her driven before you, and hear the lamentations of Yurako.

If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war being an older sister is being an older sister, and not popularity seeking.

Trust me, trust me, trust me…

When the fanservice is just the outline of a bra through a shirt, I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. Still, twice in one episode.

Six years ago the teacher arrived, but no more until next episode it seems. Did she give Aki and Kyouhei some glasses to make the lines disappear?

Final Thoughts: - A slow episode, certainly. Nothing much of consequence happened, just some things that needed to be done. Namely, repairing Kukuri and Takemikazuchi. Introducing the other characters was neat, but I get the feeling that they won’t be a big part of things. I also get the feeling that in the manga there was a lot more to the village visit but (understandably) because of time limits it had to be condensed. But at least it’s out of the way now and things can return to the city (and my dear Kuuko <3 )

- Koushiro’s visit home was neat. I didn’t expect him to be married with a nice house back in the village but it shows an interesting side of him. He’s come off as more about completing tasks than emotion or vendettas like the other characters and this shows him as a professional even moreso. He goes out, does his missions, then comes home to his pleasant home life. His life isn’t just about being a Seki. Of course, as I stated above, it also makes me worry about him getting killed since having a wife and a home to come back to sounds like a death flag to me. It wasn’t but one or two episodes after Barack Jenin showed Louise the picture of his wife that he got shot down in Gundam 00 season 2, just to use one fairly recent example.

- The way that Moyako and her father remain neutral as to who they do repairs for was interesting to see. It makes sense in the current climate of competition between the two families. If they stopped doing repairs for one then they’d effectively be joining the other side and make themselves a target. Same if they refused to help both sides, in which case they’d just be captured and forced to help them.