Amaama to Inazuma Episode 9: Curry

We got our standard fare for this episode, but the fact that we got to see Mrs. Inuzuka’s face was worth it. What a pretty woman. Just from that little flashback, you could see what kind of person she was.

At Tsumugi’s school, they had a sleepover and the parents were there to have fun before they left them. The children all made curry and that’s when Tsumugi mentioned an “at-home curry” and this sparks an idea when Kouhei gets back home. Before I go into the curry business, I just wanted to talk about the little bit when Tsumugi was at the sleepover. Kouhei coming home to no one just made me realize how much life Tsumugi gave the apartment. With just Kouhei it was so quiet and boring, and even he didn’t really know what to do. I would have liked to have seen him and Yagi hang out and have some drinks, just so we can see Kouhei’s life outside of Tsumugi, to see what kinds of things they’d talk about and things like that. I’d also like to know how they met because they both are pretty different. Either way, I’m glad they at least talked on the phone. And the next morning, Tsumugi comes back home and the life is brought with her.

That morning he finds his wife’s recipe book in the kitchen, and even though it only has three pages, there’s the recipe for the dry curry Tsumugi was talking about. This curry is special for both Tsumugi and Kouhei because obviously it was Mrs. Inuzuka’s recipe and it brought happy memories for the both of them. Kouhei sent the recipe to Kotori and they’re all set to make it! We got the cooking like we always do, and had another cute dance from Tsumugi. We also saw her chop a carrot because she learned to do so at her school with a children’s knife, and for some reason I’ve never heard of a children’s knife. The curry they made was different from curry we’ve seen before. This one isn’t liquidy, and it has minced veggies in it, and….raisins. Ew. But they all made it no problem and it was delicious.

It was a sweet episode because they really alluded to the mother more, which I appreciated. First off, we actually got to see her face. What a cutie. And while Kouhei and Tsumugi were eating the curry, they both remembered the same memory of when she made the curry and was crying when she was chopping onions. She grabbed Kouhei’s glasses and put them on to protect her eyes, but then she got dizzy. Both brought smiles to their faces and it was so sweet to see. But, we’re finally seeing how much Tsumugi misses her mother. We saw as she kept looking back from her father to her mother’s picture in the apartment and how her expression changed. At the end of the episode she ended up crying because her mother didn’t make the curry, and just the simple fact that she misses her mother. From the first episode, we knew it was 6 months since her death. Now it’s probably been at least 7 or 8 months now. I can understand why Tsumugi would say “Mommy’s not coming back” since it’s almost been a year, and she’s been getting no communication with her. I’m sure she’s suspecting something by now. Ohhh this poor girl.

This series is best when it focuses on these moments. The cooking portions of the show is fine and all, but it can get a little boring, especially when we don’t get much character development from it. Seeing Kouhei and Tsumugi have a casual conversation like talking about the memory is sweet, and it’s even better when we actually get to see flashbacks. Like I said before, I would like to see more of that. Maybe with another dish, we can get an entire episode dedicated to how Kouhei met his wife, see how she and Tsumugi were close, and what events led up to her death and how Kouhei explained everything to Tsumugi.

Hopefully with Kouhei finding his wife’s mini cookbook, they’ll cook another dish of hers and that’ll give us the excuse to see everything that we want to see.