First Impressions / Wagaya no Oinari-sama

「お稲荷さま。旅行する」 (Oinari-sama. Ryokou Suru)
“Oinari-sama. Goes on a Trip”

Episode at a Glance:
After winning a trip to a hot spring from a lottery draw, Kuugen, Kou, and the rest of the Takagamis make the trip out there, where they run into Noboru and Tooru’s grandmother, Oobaba-sama, and uncle, Midzuchi Tatsuhiko. Later, Kuugen (male), Noboru, and Tooru go off to take bath, but Noboru makes everyone hold off when Kou comes by offering to wash their backs. As Tooru leaves in a hurry, he accidentally leaves behind his protective bracelet and then runs into a small girl asking him to play with her. After giving the girl his name and promising to play with her later, Tooru sticks around at the inn while everyone else leaves to check out the surrounding area.

While the others enjoy their time outside, Kou soon realizes that there’s no one at the inn to protect Tooru, so everyone rushes back. There, they find several seemingly harmless ghostly apparitions around and Kuugen eventually finds the girl who’s responsible; however, upon threatening her for her pranks, the girl cries. Noboru and Kou then find Tooru collapsed in a room, where Kuugen “convinces” the girl to return the spirit energy that she absorbed from him. Kuugen then explains that she’s a Zashiki Warashi (座敷童), a protective household deity, and gets the girl to apologize for using Tooru’s energy to play with. As Oobaba-sama walks off, Noboru chases after her, saying that there’s nothing to worry about since Kuugen and Kou are protecting them properly.

The others then play badminton with the girl using old-fashioned hagoita (羽子板) rackets, before finally taking a dip in the hot spring, where Noboru still can’t quite relax thanks to Kou.

 

Next Episode:
「お稲荷さま。女子高生になる」 (Oinari-sama. Joshikousei ni Naru)
“Oinari-sama. Becomes a Female High School Student”

Impressions:
Despite being a hot spring episode, there wasn’t much fan-service until the very end, but only if you can even consider that fan-service. While the episode itself was pretty entertaining when I watched it (mainly because of Kuugen’s antics such as crashing through a door while going for the birdie), in retrospect, not a lot happened. Despite being a spirit, the little girl didn’t really cause much of a problem and everything was resolved fairly quickly. The focus of the episode seemed to be more of Oobaba-sama’s lack of trust in Kuugen’s ability to protect Noboru and Tooru though, which did seem to be resolved at the end.

Seiyuu-wise, the little Zashiki Warashi girl was played by the extremely talented Sawashiro Miyuki (Shinku in Rozen Maiden, Kanzato Jun/Yuki in PERSONA -trinity soul-, Shibasaki Asako in Toshokan Sensou, Maria Tarou Sekiutsu in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei), who used her child-like voice here, but has many more distinct voices in her repertoire. Miyuki has quickly become one of my well-respected seiyuus given her talent, so I encourage you all to watch series that she’s in and see (hear…?) for yourself what I’m talking about.

Next time, Kuugen becomes a high school student and goes to school. It looks like we’ll see more of the school idol, Miyabe Momoji, as well and what looks like another fox deity.

P.S. On a personal note, I’m still thinking of going to a hot spring myself while I’m here in Japan, but I still haven’t decided where to go, so if anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to let me know.

 

Cast:
– Tenko Kuugen (天狐 空幻) / Yukana (ゆかな)
– Tenko Kuugen (天狐 空幻) / Nakamura Yuuichi (中村 悠一)
– Kou (コウ) / Hayami Saori (早見 沙織)
– Takagami Noboru (高上 昇) / Mizushima Takahiro (水島 大宙)
– Takagami Tooru (高上 透) / Shimura Yuu (嶋村 侑)
– Sakura Misaki (佐倉 美咲) / Kano Yui (鹿野 優以)
– Oobaba-sama (大ばば様) / Sadaoka Sayuri (定岡 小百合)
– Midzuchi Tatsuhiko (三槌 龍彦) / Furusawa Tooru (古澤 徹)
– Zashiki Warashiko (座敷童子) / Sawashiro Miyuki (沢城 みゆき)
– Lottery clerk (くじ引きの係員) / Ishikawa Ayano (石川 綾乃)
– Hostess (女将) / Takeda Hana (武田 華)
– Chef (板前) / Kushida Yasumichi (櫛田 泰道)
– Waitress (仲居) / Honda Mariko (本多 真梨子)
– Target practice person (射的屋) / Nagai Takanori (永井 孝則)

13 Comments

  9. if you go don’t forget to make pictures of yourself as fanservice for the girls who visit this page. It’s obligatory to have a fanservice post when the blogger goes the a hot spring. 😛

    outcast
    Reply

  11. @outcast:
    I’m not sure what image you have of me in real life (or if you are even one of these aforementioned female readers), but that was a pretty amusing comment. =) It’s like I’m living in an anime. o_O

    @Man0warr:
    I’m slowly getting into writing summaries again, so hopefully they’ll help people understand the episodes better should they want to watch the raws.

    divine
    Reply

  12. Depends on where you are in Japan. One of my friends swears by Beppu, but that’s waaaay down in Kyushu.

    I skipped the onsen when I was in Japan, and instead found a really good spa. Most onsen just offer scalding hot water, or scalding hot water that smells like rotten eggs, or scalding hot water inside/outside.

    I hit the spa at a nice hotel in Nara, and I got to experience the pool of scalding hot water, the pool with bubbling scalding hot water -1, the pool of heart-attack-inducing cold water, and the pool of just plain water that won’t cook/kill you.

    Oh, and it had a sauna that made you feel like smoked meat. I preferred the scalding hot water. It does wonders for tight muscles.

    It’s the Nara Royal Hotel. Ran me about 9000 yen for the one night I stayed. Nara’s a nice place, if you don’t mind deer droppings all over the place. (You get used to it.)

    sarcastic_weasel
    Reply

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    Honda Prelude
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