Uchouten Kazoku is about a family of tanukis and their day to day life. In this world tanukis, tengus and humans live side by side, but somehow some groups of humans eat hotpots with tanukis in them. The father of the Shimogamo was boiled in hotpot and eaten when the boys were younger. Now one son is trying to follow in his father’s footsteps, one is stuck as a frog, one is flouting tanuki tradition, and one is in training.
The story of Uchouten Kazoku is a slice of life mostly about the Shimogamo family. Since the father died the family is falling apart. The younger sons have no role model and the older son is trying hard to keep the family from being a laughingstock. Luckily with the interesting environment and weird situations the family finds itself in this is working better than most slice of life shows so far. I find myself wanting to know more about a world where mythical creatures live with humans, but humans still eat them. It is hard to imagine eating something that can look like you and talk with you.
The characters background needs to be fleshed out more. The show keeps introducing things about the characters without giving much background. For instance the second oldest brother is a frog and we get to hear all about his days as a frog without much background on what lead him there. Hopefully later on this quirk and others will be explored further.
The artwork for Uchouten Kazoku is not of the quality that P.A. Works usually produces. It is even pretty ugly at times. Usually even if I do not like what I am watching with P.A. Works it looks good while being awful. Hopefully all the work will go into making an interesting story this time.
Overall Uchouten Kazoku is pretty good if you enjoy slice of life shows. The family has problems that are interesting to explore unlike clubs of girls doing nothing.
