Oh god, this climax. Other shows, take note. This is how you SHOUD NOT do on your final battle. How this show can jump from Yasaburou, Yaichirou fighting the Fellow Friday for their lives last week, to the conflict of Soun and Tenyama (that they eventually ended up in Hell again), to end with Benten and Nidaime’s face-off in a span of 5 minutes is way beyond me. It’s all over the place, and just like some oldschool screwball comedy where crazy events just keep stacking up by the minutes. But somehow this climax freaking WORKS. After all, that Kyoto world is fantastical crazy, so isn’t it the most fitting idea to have the craziest showdown ever for that fateful night? At the end of the day you won’t learn much how Soun faked his death or the reason why Nidaime come back to Kyoto, but whatever the case, the emotional development is clear. Soun pathetically uses all means possible to attain the Nise-emon title; and doesn’t matter the reason Nidaime comes back, he’s clearly unhappy and frustrated. With that Eccentric Family tied up all of the core casts’ character arc magnificently. I won’t lie when I say that this is the climax only Eccentric Family can pull off, with satisfying conclusions and feature almost everything you love about this series: warm, whimsical with heart. This show ends in a very high note.
Benten and Nidaime finally have a long-awaited battle. Well, all the previous events all build up to this battle and for a while I thought that Benten would have her first win since Nidaime is clearly angry, thus vulnerable. From before that fight there was interesting opposite visual metaphor for these two: Benten appears with ice cold atmosphere, while when Nidaime gets out of control, he burst out of flame. The battle between Ice Queen and Flame Boy has some great set-pieces, but that powerful fight slowly descends into the fight between kids as they desperately try to grab each other’s hair, and mouth and dirty trick are in play too. That fight feels sad. The two comes out of it both feel like losers. This is the first time we see both of them cry, in a way that they feel frustrated with themselves. Akadama sensei, a mentor for them both, faces his son eye-to-eye for probably the first time in decades, concludes nicely “If you feel frustrated, grow stronger”.
After that crazy night, the rest of the episode feels like a welcome epilogue where Yasaburou meets all the casts for the last time. Congrats to Yaichirou and Gyokuran for their tying the knot (imagine Yaichirou’s most nervous moment isn’t when he ends up in a hot pot but when he looks at his bride in gown. Puff!!). Kureichirou (the real one) makes amend with the Shimogamo again, and Yasaburou finally asks Kaisei for her hand paw, with some wry wisdoms from Yasaburou’s grandma, despite that means he can’t transform freely in front of her. The sweet last sequence where the three of them exchange to each other is probably the fitting ending to this fluffy tale. Here they are, as she grasps on the edge of his jacket, and they walk on for new adventure. That, my friend, is the red string of fate. I die a happy man now.
This second season certainly is a great season on its own. As to the question whether or not it surpasses the original season, let me just say that sequels most of the time are inferior to the originals (well, unless you’re The Godfather or Mad Max, but even with the former, the original still holds more cultural landmark than the second, and I am talking about complete story here – Light Novels where they will expand the world in 20 plus volumes are out of question), so the real angle would be if this second season is a WORTHY follow-up to the first? The answer is obvious, Yes. The Eccentric Family 2 not only improves the settings and the themes of the original, the new additions have been phenomenal and they are even more WOW set-ups than the first, most notably the Painting of Hell and the Moon parts. One thing that I feel this season improves on the first is the romantic part as all the romances feel grounded here. The Eccentric Family is considered as a signature work for P.A Works, mostly because how the staffs clearly love this world and I can totally see the love breathes through in every scene here. You say anime is looking doom in the future? As long as there are works like this, created by the passion of the staffs because they just fall in love the project like this; I don’t see anime dying anytime soon. The full review is coming soon but take note that since psgels originally covered the first season without a final impression, my review will be about the two seasons of The Eccentric Family.
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