Greetings everyone. I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

The world seems to have calmed down a bit since the US presidential elections, and there is a more interesting and heartwarming thing everyone was looking forward to throughout the last week, the super-moon! I hope you managed to see it too. I must say that I hadn’t seen something as beautiful in quite a long time. As a matter of fact, I watched the super-moon from a place which reminded me of Kagawa, Souta’s hometown. A peaceful place in the depths of Japan where nothing stressful really happens…

But let’s not get too distracted and get down to business, shall we? With this episode we are halfway through Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari, and I think you might be asking yourself a couple of questions, probably the ones I keep asking myself: Why did this tanuki appear in front of Souta? Why does it have such a huge impact on Souta? What the hell is Souta going to do now? He can’t keep the tanuki forever, can he? Believe me, I keep asking myself the same questions, but still find it quite hard to answer some of them.

However, it’s not yet time to dwell on them, but instead we will move on and see what happened in the latest episode of Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari!

Japanese Title: 東京タワー

Plot

The episode starts with Souta returning to Tokyo, together with Poko. It has been around two weeks since he left for Kagawa and during that time he tried to cut off all contact with his workplace. However, a call from him co-worker made him return. We got a sneak-peak on his workplace, and it seemed like the people who work with Souta respect him and cherish him a lot. Especially the guy who called him, Hiroshi.

In Japan, there is this thing called senpai-kouhai (senior-junior) relationship, and you probably need to be in a very Japanese environment and get a senpai of your own to get how it really works. Anime is just not enough to describe it in full. I have experienced it myself and all I can say is that it’s tough. But on the other hand, your senpai is a person whom you look up to, somebody who can inspire you and even guide you in your life. It is hard to say what kind of relationship Souta and Hiroshi have, because we only see them for a very short period of time, but it is really easy to guess that Hiroshi is really fond of Souta. He has been looking forward to finishing the project he started with him, and when Souta says he wants to go back to Kagawa it hits home with Hiroshi. He blames it on Poco, and the latter starts crying.

Long story short, Souta stays at the office because of over-time, but he is sent back home when the boss notices that Poco isn’t feeling well. Poco is feverish and loses control over his body: his ears and tail come out. It is exactly at this point, that Hiroshi rushes into Souta’s apartment and sees Poco in that state. Souta somehow manages to make him go to sleep and convinces Hiroshi in the morning that it was just a dream; Poco can’t possibly have ears and a tail.

The rest of the plot I will keep a secret, so you can find out for yourself what decision Souta makes about his work. He is in a pretty complicated situation, that is for sure.

Episode Highlights

We got introduced to a couple of new characters in this episode, like the young boy Hiroshi, and Souta’s boss Dahama. We get to see Souta’s relationships with people other than his family and his high school friends.

It turned out that Dahama was a person whom Souta met when he had the accident with his leg during high school. He overheard Souta and Nakajima talk about the website Souta had made. It was just a simple website where the two of them would be writing about their fishing adventures. Dahama helped Souta and gave him some advice on how to make the website look better and that helped Souta get many views as well as his first comment! For a high school boy this was a big deal! Souta was invited to work at Dahama’s office, and that’s what he did in Tokyo for the past ten years. You can see that the connection between these two goes much deeper. It isn’t just your regular boss-subordinate relationship, both of them cherish the other.

Another point I absolutely loved about the episode was seeing Souta lose his cool over Poco collapsing. The only thing that would go through his mind was that Poco doesn’t have anyone except him. He takes care of Poco with love, and he wants to protect him. Isn’t that just sweet? It is just adorable watching Souta change through his connection with Poco.

Work-Life Balance

Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari is an amazingly sweet and adorable anime. It makes me think about my relationships with the people that are around me. I wonder if it does the same to you. Do not hesitate, and leave a comment here on Manga.Tokyo and tells your opinion! We will be looking forward to your comments!

【Official Website】http://www.udonnokuni-anime.jp/

【Official Twitter】@udonnokuni_tv *Recommended hush tag : #うどんの国

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