Season Two Ep 3 review (a.k.a. The First Kiss!)

The First Kiss!!!

Ep 3 is out, and it seems viewers in Australia can see it early in the morning of Thursday (I saw it at 6 am AEST, at least). As I hoped, we do have THE FIRST KISS in Ep 3 (as taken from Vol 6 Ch 9). However, this episode is a mixed bag for me for technical reasons, including the character animation. I just have to admit that Season One character animation (when it was at its best) was much better (the background animations are gorgeous in both seasons though), but for now, let’s talk about THE FIRST KISS!

To watch The First Kiss, you need to watch other scenes first, including Kasuga’s reconciliation with O-Ryō and the former’s departure from Tenjin-ya. Jump a few paragraphs down to read about those other scenes, but meanwhile, I still have beef to address here:

What the heck with the pumpkin dish eating animation?! It was so bad that I found it hard to re-watch it! For a start, Ōdanna-sama looks like a child in front of Aoi when the girl was standing behind the counter (the Master’s large frame in Season One was reduced to being a teenager’s frame when he was sitting at the counter). Also, when he sipped the pumpkin potage, he looked alright...

but when he ate the croquette, he looked so weird! I can only conclude that this scene was drawn by several animators, but one of them was really REALLY incompetent! So bad that I don't want to screen shot it!

Get that animator back to the drawing board and get him/her/them away as possible from Ōdanna-sama!!!

Huh! I also wish that some scenes here were front-shot, hence showing more of Ōdanna-sama’s emotions instead of his back. Are they trying to reduce the budget further?? 

Now, that one out of the way, I can talk about the scene leading to the First Kiss. The animator thankfully gradually changed back to the more competent one(s) after the pumpkin tasting dish, such that I can focus on the content. 

As per Vol 6 Ch 9, Ōdanna-sama gave Aoi the Obsidian Key and asked her to use it to open something if she wanted to know more about him. True to Vol 6 Ch 9, he also said he preferred that she didn’t know about it at all... because he fears that she'd hate him. He is an oni, after all.

Then Ōdanna-sama took his leave, but – unlike in the novel – he didn’t look at Aoi’s hairpin when he caressed her hair before he left the Moonflower. I do appreciate Ōdanna-sama’s pensive emotion as he opened the Moonflower’s sliding door. Aoi was oblivious about this emotion, but at least she later felt something was off.

Thus, I appreciate that there were a few seconds of back and forth when Ōdanna-sama was walking away with his back facing us and Aoi watching him retreating into the night before the girl walked towards him to grab his black haori like in the novel. I love it. The next lines she said about trusting him is practically from the novel, which is great. I like it that “Suki yo!” was translated as “I care about you”. I translated it as “I am fond of you”, but I agree with this translation as well. I wish we have more close-up shots here instead of the zoom out – full frame – shot, and this is mainly because that incompetent animator returned to ungrace Ōdanna-sama’s face with a weird expression. Just assign that animator to colouring trees, please!

(the photos below are about scenes of which animations I approve, so the full-frame incompetent animation is not here below)

Then, finally, The First Kiss. I love it that Ōdanna-sama’s eyes grew wider as he heard Aoi’s statement. Then he kissed Aoi. 

I love it that the kiss was actually a proper one. The novel portrayed it as a very light kiss borderline between touching and not touching, but I love it that it was a round kiss here (well, maybe without tongue, but hey, at least it was square in the mouth!). 

(keep the kiss animators, they were doing a good job here!)

Aoi didn’t embrace Ōdanna-sama back… but hey, I think she didn’t do it either in Vol 6 Ch 9 cos she was too shocked after being kissed.

Oh, girl…

Then Ōdanna-sama promised that he would marry Aoi; that he respects her from the bottom of his heart.

Straight from the novel, which is great!

As we watched Ōdanna-sama disappearing into the night, with loneliness emanating from his back, Aoi narrated the scene, saying that Ōdanna-sama never returned home afterwards. 

Very sad, but a good transition to the arrival of Raijū.

Which was also not gorgeously animated the way Season One Raijū was. Don’t get me wrong: I hate Raijū for what he did to Ōdanna-sama and Aoi (and Princess Iso, Ranmaru and Ginji, to say the least), but the main villain needs to be animated well, and S1 animators did a great job at that. 

Anyway, thus Ep 3 ends with Raijū announcing that the King appointed him as the new master of Tenjin-ya. 

Now let’s talk about other scenes.

I forgot if the silver bracelet scene was ever in Vol 6, but my suspicion is that it’s an original scene (I am counting on you, other readers, to correct me on this!). This is interesting because the scene practically shifted Kasuga’s reconciliation with O-Ryō to be before Ōdanna-sama’s visit to the Moonflower. In Vol 6, Kasuga’s departure was featured in Ch 10 after the Master’s visit (and The First Kiss) in Ch 9, but I do think that shifting her departure earlier lends a better transition to the Tenjin-ya lobby scene where Raijū enters. I am also still wondering why Kasuga was given a lot of screen time this early, but IMO it’s because they wanted to shift some Vol 8 weights earlier on so that they can speed up the very thick Volume 8 to arrive at Vol 9 (where most of Ōdanna-sama’s background story appears).

 

 (Edit 17 Oct'25: Thanks to Anon who pointed out that the silver bracelet scene was in the earlier section of Vol 6 Ch 9. I didn't translate that earlier part because of my schedule, but Fan Translator By Choice did. Also, the secret of Ginji's tail was in Vol 6 Ch 4, thanks to Anon as well!)  

 

By the way, this silver bracelet scene shows us O-Ryō’s cold blast ability, which I think deserves a lot of screen times, because it’s so cool! Also, IDK that you can grab Ginji-san’s third tail from the right and force him to revert to his cute little fox form! I know it’s impolite of O-Ryō of doing that, but I like it that O-Ryō is giving Kasuga the responsibility to retrieve the bracelet here. I also love the scene where O-Ryō’s little bell is featured hanging on Kasuga’s obi… it’s faithful to Vol 6 Ch 10, and it’s sweet.

There’s a short dialog between Ginji and Aoi when the former was enjoying the tuna sandwich. I can see Ginji’s sadness when he realised that Aoi was cooking for Ōdanna-sama, but I think Season One animation team would’ve done a much better job. Yeah, I still prefer Ginji-san’s Season One animation, and I think I will settle for this decision. We don’t need to reduce his character appeal to foster the fact that Aoi and Ōdanna-sama are an item – I think Ginji-san should just be allowed to be his sexy, S1, self, like Ranmaru and Hatori (who also lost a bit of their sex appeal, but not as much as Ginji).

At this rate, I don’t know how they would portray Ginji’s dawn monologue in Vol 7 Intermezzo 1. We might get a few seconds of it if we’re lucky, but I will always mourn the fact that that scene would not be animated by Season One animation team.

Now, this is where I also need to vent out something else: I think the change of Director might have things to do with cutting the content from two cours into one cour. I bet that the former director (Okuda Yoshiko, who had done a great job putting five volumes into two cours I’d say) wouldn’t want to cram five volumes into one cour, hence he left. The current director (Joe Yoshizaki) is a new one (I don’t like his work on the Water Magician or something The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadow – too full of boobs!), and I am annoyed actually that such an important work like Kakuriyo is given to him as his second big work. However, I will eat my words if he can safely deliver Season Two. For now, I can only say that Season One character animation team did a much better job… and the S1 Director would have a lot of hands in it. 

Coming back to the animation (I think I am ranting a lot about the animation here, but I bet I am not the only one): I realised that some Japanese netizens complained about the inaccurate animation of kimonos worn in S2 Kakuriyo. As I am a novice in kimono kitsuke, I am still struggling to identify all mistakes in every scene, but I start to see some incorrect animations of kimono. Again, as I said in Ep 1 review, women kimono needs to give a more tubular shape, but some kimono (like what O-Ryō) was wearing in Ep 3 gave too much waist shape. Yes, this tubular shape is hard to achieve for non-Japanese body type (like mine), but for the Japanese body type (like O-Ryō and Aoi), the tubular shape should be quite easy to achieve. It seems this inaccuracy is because some animators are not Japanese (they are Chinese animators, to be exact), hence they failed to understand the aesthetics of kimono-wearing. 

I cannot blame it to the animators only though. Two of the producers also have Chinese names, and while I certainly do not want to be racist here, I do think that a Japanese production, particularly with such a traditional Japanese setting like Kakuriyo, deserves a good quality control for the Japanese cultural aspects of the anime. There should be someone in charge of quality control in Kakuriyo S2 such that the kimono aesthetics are met, such that people with keen eyes and cultural sensibilities can still feel the Japanese vibe of this anime (and other similar anime series).

To be fair, by the same token, the Apothecary Diary suffered similar criticism for not having the Chinese vibe enough; though the author did say that the setting was not in an olden Chinese kingdom. “Raven of the Inner Palace” was safe though; their Tang Dynasty fashion sense seems to escape scrutiny – again, with the author saying that the setting was not in a Chinese kingdom. “With You and the Rain” has a lovely Japanese splice-of-life feeling, like Horimiya, and WYTR had some South Korean animators. Thus, I think as long as there’s quality control and a decent number of animators who understand Japanese culture, a mixed-nationality team is okay. I do think that a Japanese production should be led by a Japanese team though to at least get the vibe right. 

(this logic doesn’t apply to any European-based isekai stories, IMO. I mean, you need have a Tudor expert for the War of the Roses, but you don’t need that for The Rise of the Shield Hero)

Here I just have to be honest: I wish that Kakuriyo was taken over by a different studio like Kadokawa Sony, Netflix or even NHK (NHK’s “Ravens do not Choose Their Masters” is amazing!). At least, I wish that Gonzo would collaborate with them instead. They’d have the budget and team to retain the Japanese flavours in Kakuriyo S2 to the fullest. I had hopes that Makaria (who produced my favourite Horimiya) would help the production, but I haven’t been proven right so far… 

To end this review with a positive note, the music starts to have Japanese tones in my ears, which is a delight (because Season One was tappuri – plenty – of Japanese tones in their music). The scene where Kasuga retrieved the silver bracelet has some shamisen, IMO, or was it koto? Anyway, it was great. It reminded me of S1 episode where Ōdanna-sama blocked some fire arrows in Yoto. Also, the duet between Konishi Katsuyuki and Tōyama Nao at the end was lovely; I want the full song! This song is actually a blend of two songs: Nao's "Recipe of Tears" and Katsuyuki's "A Spoonful of Light". I totally can read Konishi Katsuyuki as a “featuring” at the end credit, so it’s nice to know that he definitely sang that song. I need to go back to Season One’s “Unknown Feelings” (“Shiranai Kimochi”) to see if he was also singing the male background voice there along with Nakajima Megumi.

 (I will find the lyrics for "Recipe of Tears" and "A Spoonful of Light" and translate them later. Also for the Opening Theme Toryanse) 

Ep 4 will have Aoi opening a food wagon (a food truck is a better translation here, I admit), but I hope we will have Byakuya kicking Raijū’s butt beforehand. I also hope that Byakuya will educate the Thunder Beast that changing a Hachiyō isn’t that easy; you need to win a majority vote amongst the eight Hachiyō. 

Although Byakuya looks like a little boy here (aargh, the bad animators strike again!)

We may get an education about the historical background of Kakuriyo narrated by Ritsuko-san, but I hope it’s in Ep 5 (for it’s unfair to the Kakuriyo history if they spend just a few seconds narrating the history). For next week, I just want to see Byakuya strategizing with the whole Tenjin-ya crew, Saraku giving Aoi a food truck… and having a certain purple-haired ayakashi enjoying Aoi’s meal onboard of Tenjin-ya's Seikamaru airship.

At least they kept the food truck logo the same!

It seems we'll have Prince Takechiyo in Ep 4... but it's too soon! 

By the way, for those who wants to make the pumpkin menchikatsu (croquette), follow this recipe below:

And... once again I want to post this image as a reminder that this episode, with all its flaws, gave us this beautiful first kiss...