English Dub Review: Kakushigoto “Everyone Gets Their Turn in the End / You’re Spending the Night!”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

When Kakushi is asked to be a judge for the magazine’s Newcomer Awards, he’s really not into it. But when he hears Hime being brave about a duty of her own that she dislikes, he decides to own up and do it. He throws himself into the task and ends up writing some pretty helpful criticism. But unfortunately, it gets edited by Satsuki, who adds LOL onto the end of everything.

Later on, Satsuki forces Kakushi to stay at a hotel to finish up a deadline. In return, Satsuki is supposed to go look after Hime, but things don’t quite go as planned. He ends up following Nadila instead, while Hime is left alone and scared. Luckily, Naru arrives and and helps keep Hime company until Nadila returns. The three of them end up having a little party with Ichiko, who has captured Satsuki spying. The next morning, Hime gives her dad a gold medal.

Our Take:

We’re four episodes into the colorful cuteness of Kakushigoto, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Just in this episode alone, we get scenes of Kakushi bonding with his team at a bathrobe party, Hime having a sleepover with her own friends, and a big reveal at the end about who has really been leaving boxes for an older Hime to find. It may not venture much into in-depth character development or ongoing plot points, but Kakushigoto is comfortable doing the same thing it does every week — and that’s just fine.

The first half of the episode finds Kakushi being asked to judge a contest for wannabe manga artists. He finds inspiration to go through with it thanks to Hime’s influence. Something similar happened last week or the week before, but I still love the idea of the child getting to teach the parent a lesson about behaving properly. (Even if it’s really Ichiko who taught the lesson to both of them in this case.) Later on when Satsuki sends the manga to his house, I couldn’t ignore the delivery man who took the trouble to stack a wall of boxes around Hime that kept her trapped until Kakushi returned home — and the same thing happens to him later. What is it with these postal workers, man?

In the second part, Satsuki pressures Kakushi to finish up on a chapter, and rents a hotel room so everyone can stay focused. But when his staff members start to arrive one by one, Kakushi winds up throwing an impromptu bathrobe party. It’s definitely one of the less serious goings on in this week’s episode, but it was a fun distraction nonetheless. The real meat of the second half comes at Hime and Kakushi’s home, when Hime ends up throwing a party of her own. We haven’t gotten to spend too much time with Naru, Nadilla, and Ichiko, so it’s cute to see all of them hanging out and keeping Hime company — even if Satsuki is a bit of a creep towards Nadilla. (Here’s hoping they end up in a happy and healthy relationship eventually.)

The ending of this week’s episode reveals a rather surprising twist. When Hime compares the writing on her 17th birthday box with the date on the gold medal she gave her father way back then, she realizes that it’s not her mother who left the boxes for her — it was Kakushi all along. She hugs the box and whispers a quiet thank you to him. It’s a heartfelt scene that really makes you wonder what’s happened to him. Hime isn’t an adult yet, so he should still be around if all is well. It’s interesting that the show is teasing out these bits of detail at the end of every episode or so. It makes the emotional beats harder to carry over, but it’s definitely a unique way of doing an epilogue. Instead of a a five minute scene at the end of the last episode, it feels like Kakushigoto is splitting it up over the entire run.

The fourth episode of Kakushigoto doesn’t introduce much in the way of new developments, although it was great to see Hime hanging around with side characters like Naru and Nadilla. Satsuki had a more prominent role in this episode, but I prefer when Ichiko and the assistants do more, so hopefully they get more screen time next week. (Or the week after, depending on Funimation’s schedule.)