What’s the common point between traps and tanuki? Uchouten Kazoku answers!
Uchouten Kazoku is a type of anime that is a bit complicated to summarize but I’ll try anyway. In Kyoto, Shimogamo Yasaburou is a tanuki who lives among humans and tengu. The three people live together in the city, some aware of each other, some not. Who knows what can happen with yokai?
I was initially drawn to this anime because of the character designs. Kohji Kumeta’s designs are always something I like to look at, even if they’re usually prettier in black and white but I don’t think it would work in anime. Besides, this anime is pretty colourful, even the night scenes look great, that’s a good point.
Anyway, the second thing that drew me in was the fact it was an anime about yokai. I am completely in love with anime about yokai and this one is the same.
If I had to say anything against this first episode it’s that it was not quite clear about the direction it’s going in. Most of this episode is spent foreshadowing or in flashbacks, things are happening in the present but it happens without actual context. Well, most of it happens without actual context — that flashback was actually a bit useful, if only to give Benten and everyone else a bit more character development. In a way that was really clever, since we do not have any idea of what is going to happen or why, well, there is no other choice but to watch. And that’s what I’m going to do because this first episode made me hopelessly curious about the next one. (That and it’s a yokai story, something interesting is bound to happen, especially since the tanuki are shape shifter …)
This seems interesting …
In the end, I’m actually wondering why it’s only tanuki and tengu. I don’t dislike them but what I like about yokai is their diversity. Another thing that makes me curious, will we get to see more kinds or not?
Not too many characters were introduced. We first have Yasaburou, the trap tanuki shape shifter, which is apparently something not well-considered in the tanuki society, but we don’t know why either. The second is Benten, a human (apparently) who can fly and their teacher, a tengu. For now I cannot really say anything about them, I don’t have enough material. All I know is that putting those three together is bound to be interesting, they seem to be very different from each other but also very close.
In short, I cannot wait for the next episode!
