Subculture Anime Blog

Next time….on Dragon Ball Z….!!! Er…my final impression is included.

Summary:

Noboru has everyone in the house help him with chores one day, giving each of them assignments to clean different rooms. Because of their usual mistakes, however, he is forced to take on Tenko and Ko’s roles. When Gyokuyou sees Tenko sweeping the floor outside later, he expresses a bit of anger to himself. Noboru later becomes excited when he finds an ad for a sale nearby. When he goes with Toru to the stated location, however, he finds that there is nothing there. When the boys turn around, they find that a beast has appeared to capture them. Tenko and Ko realize that the boys are taking longer than they should later, and when Tenko learns that Ebisu knows nothing about the suggested sale, she quickly becomes suspicious. Arriving at the vacant lot with Ko afterwards, she sees the remains of the beast that had taken the boys away.

The girls eventually reach a sealed cave, which the boys are locked behind. They attempt to use their powers to break the block open, but this is in vein. Gyokuyou soon appears, just as Tenko had suspected. Gyokuyou expresses that he simply sealed the boys as Tenko had been, wondering why she has had to do things like chores. Tenko laughs about this, believing that she has fun doing such things, but she becomes very angry when Gyokuyou refuses to release the boys. The two send attacks towards each other, but this is eventually stopped by Ko. Gyokuyou finally agrees to release the boys, but only if Tenko would leave them. When he states that things would be safer for the boys if it wasn’t for her being with them, Tenko cannot help but be taken back by these words. When the boys are finally released, they find that Tenko is no longer with them.

The boys later go to their grandmother’s home for the first time in awhile, suspecting that Tenko would have returned to the area. Oobaba confirms that she has felt Tenko’s presence, which brings the boys to the area where she had previously been sealed. Tenko refuses to leave, however, even when Toru recognizes the true reasons why she had left them. Noboru states that they will be waiting outside for her until she came out, but this results in their staying outside far into the cold night. Tatsuhiko eventually arrives to check on the boys, then bringing them some food and supplies due to Noboru’s request. When Noboru temps Tenko with food, he is finally able to draw him out. This brings the group back to normal, but Ko looks behind her to see an angry Gyokuyou watching them.

During the New Year’s shrine visit later, Noboru meets with several of his acquaintances. Sakura is very happy to have her kimono praised by Noboru, but when Momiji and even Mubyo appear to greet Noboru, she and Noboru’s other friends panic. The Takagami family meets with many of their friends later that afternoon to enjoy nabe together. Tenko takes the chance to find Gyokuyou outside, apologizing for breaking her promise. When Gyokuyou appears, however, she finally understands that Tenko was happy because she was no longer alone. Gyokuyou is hesitant when Tenko invites her inside as well, but she seems to be convinced when Tenko finally reminds her that she is also part of her family.

Impression:

I can’t be the only one who was thinking, “It’s over 9000!!!” around the middle of this episode. I also laughed at this suddenly becoming a harem anime towards the end. Poor Sakura. The rest of the episode turned out to be, for the most part, exactly like I suspected it would be. I do find it strange that Gyokuyou’s actions happened in the background throughout most of the series though, considering how important his/her role seems to be presented in the OP/ED sequences. I do have to mention how much I love Takahashi Mikako’s playing of Gyokuyou’s female form, as little as we got to hear it. For a final episode, this really didn’t feel like one. As somewhat of a slice of life anime though, I guess there wasn’t much to expect. I did find it funny how Tenko was acting all tsun when she was obviously going to be won over by food in the end. I also laughed at seeing his male form for the first time in what seems like forever. The ending definitely left that nice family feel that the series tended to focus on, so overall, I was pretty satisfied.

Final Impression:

Wagaya no Oinarisama has been a fairly pleasant ride for the two seasons that I have been covering it, despite how seemingly unnoticed it has remained for a lot of the community. I recall picking this show up because of its seiyu line up, and ironically enough, that’s what seemed to get most people through the show. From Yukana, Hayami Saori, and even Shizuka Itou among others, the cast certainly wasn’t weak. I’ll say again that, although they won’t save a bad show, quality voice actors certainly won’t hurt a decent or good series. The animation on the other hand, coming from ZEXCS, probably wasn’t the most impressive around. The animation was very simple, though it did get the job done. I did find it strange how well the second ED looked when compared to the rest of the series when it appeared. I can only wonder if the budget for the show could have been used more efficiently, around the middle of the series in particular. The presentation was also fairly inconsistent, with the strange previews being a big indicator on my part.

The story itself remained to be a slice of life/light drama and comedy throughout the series, and I had no problem with this. Most of the arcs were quite enjoyable for me, even if not much was unexpected or shock worthy. I do feel like some of the series could have been handled differently though, and it seems like there was a lot of potential that was left behind once the series ended. The story is based on a series of light novels, of course, which seemed to have a pretty big audience (one large enough to get it an anime adaption, at least). I do wonder if the novel has gotten farther than the anime, as animations can only alter source material to a certain point. Unless this series somehow gets a second season though, which I don’t suspect it will, I probably won’t ever find out. I can definitely say that I enjoyed Wagaya overall, but because nothing much aside from the voice cast stood out, it probably won’t become an anime that ever becomes a hit outside of its small circle of fans. If I had to slap a word on the series in the end, it would probably be “Average.”