If last week's Dagashi Kashi demonstrated how thin the show can be stretched when it reaches for constant
laughs, this week's episode showed just how pleasant it can be when it sticks to its comfort zone. As with many of the show's best episodes, this week was all dedicated to one extended storyline, with all of the leads hanging out and being their usual endearing selves. It may only have had a couple core jokes, but executing a couple ideas effectively can result in a much more engaging episode than one that consistently strives for jokes that just don't land.
In short, this episode was about Hotaru torturing herself by committing to a no-dagashi diet. Having royally screwed up her health by eating candy with a mouth ulcer last week, she ends up not appearing at Kokonotsu's shop whatsoever, to the point where he gets worried and visits her house with Saya. The episode's first few minutes were full of the lazy summer sequences the show does best, from a nighttime meeting between Hotaru and To, to Kokonotsu stopping by Saya's shop. The visit to Hotaru's house also spun a pretty solid gag out of Kokonotsu being stunned by her family's ridiculous wealth. Like with many jokes, this one worked partially because it wasn't the focus - instead, the camera stayed close to Saya as Kokonotsu simply rambled in the background about Hotaru possibly buying their entire town.
But the bulk of this episode was dedicated to Hotaru torturing herself as she attempted to hold off on eating dagashi. The lengthy sequence of Kokonotsu tempting her out of her blanket fort with various snacks was funny throughout, with Hotaru's ridiculous body language and Kokonotsu's very silly schemes doing equal work. I really liked her attempt to shoo him away without actually looking at him, and I also thought the idea of “smoking her out” with the chili powder at the bottom of a bag was great. The larger joke here was composed of a bunch of either clever or well-illustrated subjokes, making the sequence both endearing and actually pretty funny.
Eventually, Saya did the obvious thing and asked Hotaru what was wrong, which led into another fine sequence of Hotaru detailing her thought process regarding the mouth ulcer. Realizing that she'd brought this on herself by overeating dagashi, she of course turned to dagashi for the solution and attempted to get a fortune-telling dagashi to somehow heal her. When the only positive fortune she received was for “going out,” she indeed went out, running all over town with no actual destination. Running into To later that night, he gave her some very obvious advice - stop eating all the dang dagashi. And so she ended up in bed, moaning to herself and self-medicating with a ridiculous mixture of dagashi drink powders.
This week's episode got a lot of mileage out of a very simple concept. By layering the one big joke of Hotaru's situation with lots of smaller gags, the show stayed consistently funny while also remaining within the endearing slice of life tone that it handles best. The episode combined a classic slice of life scenario, “one of our friends is sick and so now we get to check out their house,” with a bunch of silly Hotaru shenanigans, to arrive at a mix demonstrating the show at its most comfortable. It wasn't knee-slappingly hilarious or anything, but it was a well-composed articulation of exactly what this show can be.
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