Uchouten Kazoku is about a family of tanuki dealing with the death of a family member. Each of the different family members are dealing with the death in their own fashion. They are also dealing with some family members that do not like their branch of the family and will do anything to make them look bad. Yasaburou is helping to take care of a professor that is a friend of the family. The professor does not really want his help, so much as the help of his former pupil the human Benten. Benten has moved on and now hangs out with the Friday Fellows who are the ones who ate the father of the Shimogamo family.
The beginning of Uchouten Kazoku is pretty slow. It is slice of life and keeps going back to the same events. For instance the fact that the dad died in a hotpot came up over and over when it did not need to. After a while the viewer should know that happened. Also a lot of going over how much the professor liked being around Benten rather than anyone else. Later in the series the information about the father became more important, but the stuff about Benten was never all that important that it needed to be brought up almost every episode.
The ending to the show suddenly pulls together a storyline that is not slice of life. Usually I do not like that, but in this show it works since it is about a theme they were harping on the whole time. They reveal what happened to the father and have it almost happens all over again. Only this time it is more exciting and draws on all the strengths of the all the sons to make it things right. The whole family theme really hits home when they all start working together at the end. I only wish that more of the show had been like this instead of slice of life.
The show has moments that do not make any sense just for convenience. For instance in the end when the wall goes down between the tanukis and the Friday Fellows. Half of the tanukis lose their form right them because of Benten. None of the Friday Fellows notice for any reason, so that they can fight over one tanuki. They only notice when the rest change form and are at that point shocked. There should not have been a fight to begin with because there were tons of tanukis right there. Also Benten suddenly deciding to pay attention to the professor again makes no sense. It is handy in context, but there is not reason for it unless there is something from the source material that is missing from the show.
Overall the end of Uchouten Kazoku was pretty entertaining, but it took a lot of mostly boring episodes to reach that point. The show could have been much better if they focused on the rivalry more than the life of the professor and probing the families feelings on everything now that the father is gone. Also how many times does their ‘idiot blood’ need to be brought up?
Score: 3/5
The real mystery of the series is…what does she have to cry about? She is so beautiful that people talk to her after she gets their father killed. There should be no reason to cry with a life like that.
