English Dub Review: A Centaur’s Life “Is Being Able to Retrace One’s Past and Ancestors A Reason to Be Happy or Unhappy? | Does Getting a Job Doing What You Love Really Bring Happiness?”

Clash of work ethics.

Spoilers Below:

The first segment focuses on Himeno’s family history, and how she came from an upper-class family. It’s generally world building, although that happens more in the last five minutes. The first portion of this segment doesn’t really go anywhere, but it was interesting to see the Himeno family history.

The latter half was significantly more interesting, focusing on Mitama again. As it turns out, she’s a Miko in her spare time and takes care of exorcisms. Whether she’s a legitimate Miko or not is up to debate, but she clearly seems more interested in the financial payouts she gets for exorcisms so that she can support her family. As it turns out, her father brings home an income, but not enough for the family to be comfortable with. The youngest child is sickly, and paying for her medicine isn’t cheap. Japan has universal insurance, but still, paying for medicine can put a financial strain on the family. Mitama does all she can to help out her family, but she doesn’t think her father does enough. He doesn’t work enough hours, and he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere with his hobby. As far as Mitama is concerned, her father doesn’t do nearly enough.

This is a complicated situation. Mitama’s work ethic is truly admirable, for at times she forsakes even her own identity to fulfill her responsibilities. She puts her all in for her family, as shown in previous episodes, enough that she devotes all her free time into her siblings, instead of having fun. When she’s not at school, she’s working. She is evidently frustrated with her father. as shown as her speaking very coldly to him. The issue is, we the audience don’t know enough about her father to accurately judge whether he’s really not doing enough. For all we know, she may be absolutely right– but we don’t know for sure.

However, she has one thing wrong– in that she continuously forgets that it’s okay to have down time. She is so devoted to work that she doesn’t see the point of rest, or having time to herself. While it’s hinted that she’s in a situation that demands constant work, she belittles her father for wanting to have a mindless hobby. In dire straits, it’s not right to ignore work for fun, but even Mitama is allowed a small breather. She has dedicated herself to her cause so much that she thinks that if a hobby isn’t going to make money, it’s worthless. Mitama really needs even an hour where she can relax.

It’s hard to judge the situation because we haven’t been shown enough of Mitama’s home life. An episode or two would have probably helped, but it seems a bit early for us to make an accurate judgment.

Also, most importantly, they mention Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Is he a hybrid in this alternate universe too? Things the anime hints but never answers.