Recap: Yasaburo is tasked with finding a flying vessel for Obon. After asking Professor Akadama, his searching brings him back to the ever coquettish Benten. What happened between these three to create such a tenuous relationship?

I imagine a lot of these references like the airride on Obon are japanese stories that I have no idea of. Something tells me if I’m gonna keep up this show, I’m gonna have to bone up on that. I mean honestly I didn’t even know there was a flying type of Tengu until they showed it in the first episode. I’m starting to assume there is some kind of invisibility to the things the creatures do. Otherwise, I still don’t get why no one notices the giant flying tearoom or last week’s literal catfight.

This show has some stellar art assets going for it. I don’t know how much of it is just traced photography, but even for that the level of detail is impressive. The animation is also top-notch. There are all sorts of great details like the slight recoil Yasaburo has when the Demon King Cedar Incident is brought up that really bring some life to the scenes. Not that this is unexpected from someone as big as PA Works, but its good to know they’re treating the story right.

If I had to offer one complaint, I am finding this pacing to be a bit slow. In the span of an entire episode our main character only managed to plan for what they were talking about at the beginning, and that didn’t even require much doing. Most of the interruption is world building, which I can appreciate, but it only does so much for me. Perhaps this is more a problem with my thoughts on how this show should be. Thinking of it like a normal show, the plot should move at a steady pace. However, this is obviously a character driven piece, so an episode that does little to advance the plot but ample to advance its characters is still accomplishing what it set out to do.

I enjoyed their interaction in the first episode, but this one really sold me on Benten and Yasaburo. I recently criticized Kimi no Iru Machi for starting an in medias res story in the wrong place, and The Eccentric Family really shows how to do that right. We have all the information we need about the two to form an idea of what might have happened, but it’s that much we don’t know that really keeps me interested in the pair. The storm fan also gave me all sorts of ideas about the connection between their mother’s fear of storms and her, but we’ll have to wait and see if any of em are substantiated. It’s nice to see a pair of adults tackle former relationships instead of always having to hear stories about high school kids and their problems.