The episode starts with Kihachi watching Inako taking one of her shamisen lessons only to cut immediately to the kids at an amusement park. Yosuke apparently extended them an invitation. Every week has come with a new invention, so… is Kihachi going to invent an electric guitar or something? Maybe even an electric shamisen. Well, all in due time. At the moment, Yosuke is busy showing off his massive steam organ (weren’t these called a calliope?). He even starts jamming away on the instrument, and… well, I guess I’m not surprised that he is utterly terrible. He might actually be tone deaf.
Kihachi has an argument with Yosuke over the terrible music about the terrible music. The latter insists that he’s producing dulcet tones. The girls hate it too, but it always seems to fall on Kihachi’s shoulders to butt heads with the rich weirdo. Maybe it’s a social thing. Even so, Yosuke ends up challenging Kihachi to do better at the hall’s grand opening. The girls are roped into performing as well. I like how Yosuke just assumes that they’ll be support Kihachi. He doesn’t even pretend that anyone will be in his corner. And yet, he’s pushing forward with this engagement with Inako. But on lighter note, I guess this is where Inako’s shamisen skills will come into play.
Maybe this is all a ruse. Yosuke might not like Kihachi, but he should know by now that the kid produces results — incredibly innovative results for his age. Yousuke can thus kill two birds with one stone. I need something big for the grand opening? Cool, lemme just goad this kid into accepting my challenge. He can do all the hard work, and maybe I can also repurpose anything the kid invents for my upcoming wedding! It’s just hard for me to tell if Yosuke is truly that bad at understanding good music or if he’s actually hamming it up. After all, he refuses to practice. He could just be your typical Dunning-Kruger idiot.
Amazingly, Kihachi already has an electric shamisen all ready to go (along with various other “electrified” instruments). When did he have the time to make one? He just slapped it together from the notes found in the Electrical Catalog? That’s crazy. It’s also a bit disappointing, because I want a show about inventing stuff to involve, y’know, the process — the trial and error — of not just building something new but also getting it to work.
Plus, this is all starting to feel a bit anachronistic. Okay, okay, I know this show is mostly a re-imagining of history. No, some kid in Japan didn’t invent the light bulb. We all know who did — or at least, who has his name on the first patent. Even so, you could imagine the light bulb being invented in Japan if things had gone differently. You could imagine that, uh, that love machine thingamajig from last week’s episode being invented in this setting. But an electric shamisen? That’s more of a modern thing, isn’t it? What’s next? Is Kihachi going to invent the computer?
Nevertheless, the girls put their best foot forward. We even get a training montage. But guess who shows up and rains on everyone’s parade. Yup, Inako’s father. This asshole only ever rears his ugly head to yell at Inako. That’s all he ever does. Every single interaction with his younger daughter is to berate her. It’s insane. And this time, he outright trashes Inako’s shamisen skills, claiming that she is nowhere good enough to perform in public. When was the last time he heard her play, though? In the end, he forbids her to play at the grand opening, but her friends have to drag her with them anyway. We are introduced to Kate’s father in the process, so at least there’s one non-shitty father in this show.
When the time comes, Inako is nervous and understandably so. Kihachi is asking her to flagrantly disobey her father’s orders. She needs to stand up for herself, but considering the time period, the role she’s expected to play, etc — anyone should be able to sympathize with her. Considering what we’ve already seen in previous episodes — especially the first two — I half-expected to see Kihachi take her aside and privately encourage her.
Narrative-wise, the show is being a bit predictable. Not only does Inako refuse to go onstage, Yajiro hurts himself, so the power goes out. Y’know how it is. Everything has to be a disaster only for our heroes to turn things around at the last second. Inako’s father even starts getting up to leave, but Noriko immediately pins him to the ground. She’s not gonna let him be an deadbeat father for once. If he was concerned about Inako embarrassing him in public, I think he has bigger worries now. What Noriko is doing to him now has to be ten times worse than Inako merely playing onstage.
Inako initially tries to help Kihachi out backstage, so this is where we get the pep talk. Better late than never, I guess, but he should have noticed her discomfort a lot sooner. He should’ve allayed her fears before she had to go onstage. I guess it’s happening now for dramatic effect, but a better (future) partner needs to anticipate their counterpart’s moods. Still, through sweat and desperate gasps of air — because Kihachi is busy trying to generate electricity for the performance — he manages to convince Inako to face her fears. Of course he does. He was always meant to succeed. I just wish the execution was under better circumstances.
Without power, the electric shamisen is just, well, a regular shamisen. Even so, Inako reluctantly puts her skills on display. Not only is she conquering her stage fright, she’s also proving her father wrong. Moreover, this serves as a bridge between the past and the future — the traditional shamisen and, well, what we’re about to hear with the electrified instruments. Her performance then inspires Kengo to run backstage and take over for Kihachi on the generator. I still don’t understand what his deal was with Kate’s father, but we’ll probably get a proper explanation later (in another episode). Kihachi should really just employ the man full time. He needs the muscle for the electricity, and Yajiro can’t cut it for big events.
With everything finally working, we end up getting… a metal song? Can you even produce that sound with these instruments? Nevertheless, the crowd goes wild. I’ll get to my overall thoughts on this scene’s execution at the end. Inako’s father can’t ignore the raucous cheer around him, so he bitterly admits that Inako resembles her mother. This is only the sixth episode, so I doubt he has turned the corner. I doubt he will suddenly cancel her engagement to Yosuke. In essence, he is trying to kill off the best version of his late wife.
Speaking of the devil, Yosuke doesn’t look displeased at all. In fact, he’s quite happy with the results. So it was truly a clever ruse from the start, then? He was putting Kihachi to the test? After the credits, he admits to puppet Seiroku that the kid might have promise after all. Uh, after three episodes of insane inventions, I think that ship has sailed. In fact, Yosuke’s mind should’ve been blown away by the light bulb alone.
But that’s the thing, right? What just unfolded is insane, and I can’t say that I’m a big fan of this episode. It’s one thing to invent an electric shamisen. But to have a girl band go onstage and rock out to metal, screamo… whatever the hell that was — complete with Inako head-banging outta nowhere — it all feels too unreal. And the audience’s reaction is equally unreal. I can’t imagine them approving of this sort of performance much less liking it. Rather, this seems like the sort of thing that would make the staid traditionalists scream, “Our morals and values of our youths have been corrupted!” But instead, we see Inako’s own shamisen teacher head banging in the audience along with the music! The story has gone from “Oh, this is a playful reimagining of history” to pure fantasy.
Plus, we don’t get to see any of the aftermath. How will Inako’s father address her when they meet up later? What does the audience say about the performance after they leave the music hall. This could still happen at the start of next week’s episode. I could still get what I’m begging for in the end. For the moment, however, it almost feels like this whole event occurred in a vacuum when it should have a rippling effect across the whole of society. After all, it’s not just about a trio of girls playing anachronistic music to a Meiji-era audience. It’s also Kihachi’s grand debut as an inventor. In order to carry this out, they dragged almost everything onstage: electric instruments to play, speakers to amplify the sound, light bulbs to illuminate the stage. Forget the performance, because the electric revolution is here! The first thing everyone should be doing is clamoring for light bulbs or at least a proper demo of one. But the episode ends predictably with the girls embracing each other and expressing their desire to perform together again. Yeah, yeah, that’s sweet and all, but society should be in an uproar right now for more reasons than one!
Stray thoughts & observations:
— The old lady tutoring Inako yells at her when she stops playing due to a broken string. But shouldn’t you? I don’t know anything about the shamisen, but I would assume that a broken string affects your performance…
— Kihachi covers his nose on the merry-go-round, because the air stinks. Considering how the girls are unaffected, however, maybe it’s just a Kihachi thing.
— Steam-powered merry-go-rounds were definitely a thing, but I don’t think any of them could ever break free from the “round” and send its riders to other locations.
— Yosuke is casually dropping a bunch of key details. He intends to get married to Inako here before the grand steam organ. Not only that, that “person’s” body has finally been completed.
— Suzu literally just said she doesn’t know how to play an instrument, but as soon as she picks up the electric biwa, she’s jamming away. I have no clue if Kate has ever played the drums before, but I’m also incredulous at the sight of her looking so comfortable on them.
— I just wanted to include a screenshot of the stoat dancing.
— What’s with the sudden change in art style? Is this a reference to some popular anime I don’t know about?
— Somehow, the training montage includes the girls going on a jog. Well, keeping yourself in tip-top shape tends to positively influence the rest of your life. I dunno about trying to push a bull out of a ring, though.
— There’s even a classic “beneath the waterfall” moment in the montage. Just don’t take your electric instruments with you when you do this.
— So it’s still Inako here, but Kihachi calls her Inago? Is that just a pet name of sorts? Oh right, he kept getting her name wrong in the first episode. This is just a weird Kihachi thing.
— I just wanted to include a screenshot of the stoat… uh, living its best life.
— Yosuke is such a diva. I’m also more convinced by the day that he plays for the other team — that he wanted to be more than just friends with Seiroku.
— Hm, I just noticed there isn’t an OP this week. I guess there’s no new lore to drop.
— Wait, Kate’s father’s name is Stuart Smith? I thought her family name was Okura.
— Stuart has a curious reaction to Kihachi’s family name, so… I guess he has also met Seiroku. Damn, Kihachi’s bro certainly got his name out there. Well, we see Kengo refer to him as sensei, so I guess he must have taught everyone when they were younger. Why is Kengo being so weird about Stuart, though? He’s hiding in the back instead of sitting next to his future wife.
— Suzu’s siblings all look like her. One of her parents must have powerful genes.
— You can barely hear anyone speak on stage until Kihachi takes the stage later with his own equipment. A proper microphone and speaker setup seems like bigger inventions that have seemingly flown under the radar.
— Man, Yosuke isn’t even going to perform. Instead, he unveils a creepy-looking doll of himself. The human Yosuke then strips off his top and starts dancing on stage to the music. I feel like this would’ve caused a huge scandal back in the day. But not for the reason you might think. I believe the government during this era was afraid of seeming backward to the West. They cracked down on nudity so as to not offend outsiders, so I’m not sure they would look so kindly on Yosuke’s certainly unique performance. On the other hand, the government has no presence whatsoever in this story thus far — hell, we don’t even know why Seiroku and the others had gone off to war — so this is probably all moot. Just chalk it up to Yosuke being his unhinged self. I thought he was going to wear one of those frou-frou tops, though. C’mon, be your best diva self!
— Ah, we get a special ED this week. Well, it’s the same studio that produced the K-On! adaptation…