English Dub Review: Kakushigoto “I”S (Izu)”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Kakushi and the rest of his work staff members are trying to finish up their next chapters early so they can take a longer break on vacation, but unfortunately, he comes down with a cold. A number of family friends come to visit and cheer him up, but when they all write sutras and hang them up on all the walls, Kakushi’s editor thinks he’s dying.

Eventually, he recovers and takes Hime to visit the hot springs on vacation. However, this is no normal hot springs. It’s filled with everything from strange staff members to spooky haunted rooms. The two of them manage to survive, but in the final minutes of the episode, we learn the real reason why Kakushi may have vanished from his daughter’s life.

Our Take:

Eight episodes into a show is always a good time to switch it up a bit to keep things fresh, and Kakushigoto takes the opportunity to do do just that this week, sending Kakushi and Hime away from their usual hang out spots and to a weird hot springs resort that might be potentially haunted by the ghost of a famous writer. It’s got plenty of the show’s trademark warmth and humor, but there’s a little pinch of wistfulness here that makes this episode feel melancholy in a good way.

The first half of the show is spent on establishing the backstory for the hot springs visit, so it’s definitely not the stand out part of the episode. However, there are some quality moments throughout, like how Kakushi is bedridden until his editor thinks he’s dying, at which point he flies out of bed shouting about not going out like this. And of course, seeing all the sutras about marriage that Hime’s teacher and her fellow Kakushi fans have written out is fun as well.

The real meat of the episode begins once they reach the resort. Kakushi would be worried about Hime even on a normal day, but having her frolicking around the women’s bath unattended is too much for him to bear. Luckily, he’s enlisted Rasuna and Ame to help watch her — even if they get out of their mission early due to her desire to get back to Roku the dog.

There’s also a whole scene in the dining room of the resort which gets pretty weird. It’s probably one of the most oddball scenes the show has done, which is saying something. Kakushi has been marinating about people keeping secrets at hot springs ever since arriving, and he’s shocked as scenes play out all around the room: lovers confessing secret marriages, a man confessing that his pug is really a mutt, and even the resort chef telling everyone the beef isn’t really all that fancy. It gets very melodramatic in a way that’s funny, but also gets close to becoming a little too outlandish for a show that generally plays things pretty realistically for the most part.

Not only is Kakushi suspicious of all the secrets and the clerk with the strange name (which falls a little flat since it’s not that strange in dub form), the room next to theirs is blocked off for remodeling. When he inquires about it, Sharapova explains that rumors say it’s haunted by a famed writer who died there finishing his last book. This leads to a sequence where he pretends to be the ghost and frightens some local kids. He and Hime talk about their feelings on ghosts and the afterlife, and she confesses that she thinks ghosts are all around. It’s a tender moment between them as Kakushi reminisces about his wife, but it doesn’t last long.

This week’s flash forward reveals more than ever, telling us that on what might’ve been the last day she saw him, Kakushi told her he had got a big break when she suspects he had quit his job.  Is he lost at sea? Will Hime be able to reunite with him before the show ends? Kakushi may have quit drawing manga, but there’s no way I’m going to quit this show until we get some answers!