Dagashi Kashi

Episode 6

This week's Dagashi Kashi felt like a solid representation of the show overall, both in a positive and negative sense. Dagashi Kashi isn't the funniest comedy; in fact, its laughs-per-episode ratio is fairly low as comedies go, and many of its existing jokes feel very safe or familiar. But it's that safety and familiarity that actually makes what the show is good at work - creating a pleasant atmosphere with a likable cast who all seem like reasonable friends with each other. I didn't laugh much at this week's Dagashi Kashi, but I left it feeling relatively fuzzy overall, which I think is more of the point.

The episode opened with Hotaru inviting the rest of the cast to a local temple, performing a weird dance with a gummy snake, and then saying “what a coincidence to see you here. I guess you wanted to know what I was doing?” It was a very Hotaru move, and reflected the kind of relatable weirdness that makes her endearing. Hotaru isn't just a totally unbelievable character - she's an awkward girl with a really strong passion who nonetheless wants company and attention. Her ability to feel like a sympathetic person while also driving the “plot” through her dagashi fascination is one of the show's greatest strengths.

After that introduction, the episode's first half ran through a quick gamut of dagashi explanations, as the group played around with Maken Gumi, Super Himo Q, and ohajiki (essentially a kind of dagashi marbles). The jokes were light or kind of tawdry as usual (To-kun at one point pulled a skirt-flipping gag that ended in Saya punching him, for example), but the rapport across the cast remained fairly strong. Hotaru retained her record of being absolutely terrible at winning dagashi games, and there were also plenty of cute fantasy shots of young Hotaru finding different ways to play with dagashi. You got the feeling that Hotaru was essentially raised by dagashi in the way many kids are raised by television, a nice bit of understated storytelling.

The episode's second half maintained this focus on the casts' childhoods, as Saya's thoughts on possibly working at Kokonotsu's shop led to her thinking back to a time she visited Kokonotsu near the beginning of the fifth grade. Young Kokonotsu came off pretty much exactly like current Hotaru - not only did he demonstrate all of her fascination with dagashi, but he even used Hotaru-style conversation tricks to pull Saya in, saying stuff like “good observation, Saya!” as he made his sales pitch for the dagashi Yoguret. Saya, on the other hand, clearly saw his passion as quirky and endearing, but not fascinating in the way he did. Saya was interested in Kokonotsu himself, and her very middle school attempts to get him to “play doctor” felt like a believable younger articulation of her current feelings. In typical Dagashi Kashi fashion, while the scene wasn't hilarious (it was really just a long riff on the classic “how dense is this boy” joke), it was endearing and true to these characters. And the final punchline, where a shared blush between Kokonotsu and Saya cut directly to present-day Saya cringing in embarrassment, was pretty great.

Overall, this episode of Dagashi Kashi was, well, an episode of Dagashi Kashi. The show isn't quite in the top tier of its comedy/slice of life genre (it lacks the thematic acuity of a show like Barakamon or the execution of a show like K-ON!), but it's likable and warm and a generally good time. It's hard to feel upset with Dagashi Kashi.

Overall: B+

Dagashi Kashi is currently streaming on Funimation.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.