Uchouten Kazoku Episode 1 - Of Eccentric Families

Monday, July 8, 2013

That's right, keep looking.

This evoked a string of conflicting emotions. Uchouten looks like it's going to be a fun ride

I mean what I say. While confusing, Uchouten has a distinct and interesting art style, coupled with an interesting premise.

Humans live in the city, tanuki crawl the earth, tengu fly through the air. Since the Heian era relocation, humans, tanuki, and tengu have maintained a delicate balance. That's what keeps the great wheel of this city turning round and round. More fun than anything is watching that wheel spin. I'm what you'd call a tanuki, but too proud to be a mere tanuki. I admire tengu from afar and love imitating humans. For that reason, my daily life is so dizzyingly busy there's no time to be bored.

The story starts off with our protagonist, Yasaburou, lives a carefree life. He's an eccentric tanuki who is going to be fun to watch, what with his outrageous female form right off the gun. He has an adorable little brother ( Yashirou ) and a hot, elder one ( Yaichirou ) to complete the cake ( for the moment ). I believe we will soon be introduced to one more brother. The beginning shows Yasaburou trying to escape Yaichirou's notice. The oldest notices his younger brother in his disgraceful female form and corners him. Yasaburou, immediately, acts like a distressed maiden about to be sexually harrassed and Yaichirou looks around, embarrassed. He turns in the middle of his lecture to see a human male sweating with a disturbing blush on his face. He turns, and sees his brother lifting his skirt and waving his underwear in the man's face from where he is standing. Taking advantage of this moment, Yasaburou rushes off and leaves Yaichorou with the man.

"Your daughter?"

"My younger brother (¬_¬)"

Yasaburou interacts with an old tengu who can no longer fly ( waiting to see what happened xD ), a grump called Akadama-sensei. Here, we are introduced to yet another beautiful character - Satomi Suzuki, a human with magical abilities in Yasaburou's falshback. He seemed to be infatuated with her when they first met. Suzuki is also affectionately called "Benten".

Benten has now grown up, and is a member of the Friday Fellows. Yasaburou heads out to pass on Akadama-sensei's message to her. He, strangely enough, shoots it to her with an arrow from a safe distance. Hilariously enough, he had to get rid of his female chest which was getting in the way of his bow.

Later on, Benten meets Yasaburou and expresses her wish to eat him. And after a rather scary conversation, she kisses him and leaves.

I was shipping them. A lot. But then I should stop because in the first place, Uchouten Kazoku ( lit. The Eccentric Family ), is about family.

To be completely honest, I'm still a little confused but I'm hoping the next few episodes will make everything clearer. I am intrigued by the art style because it's really different from modern style ( or maybe I just don't see much of it ).

Looking forward to next week's one!

Opening Sequence: