Episode 4 commits to following a single chapter of the manga this time. beautifully displaying Kagura as a character.
Episode 4 picks up where episode 3 left off, with Kagura approaching the house and looking for Kyo. Tohru tells her that Kyo is right inside and Kagura heads in, she seems sweet and innocent at first but when she has strong feelings for someone, she can get rather violent. So as a result of her pent up love and fear from Kyo going missing for four months, she beats him half to death.
She is also very defensive and as soon as she hears that Tohru likes the cat, she jumps in to say exactly why it is that she likes Kyo. That she likes everything about him, even if he changed into his ‘other form’ she would also like him then. That’s the most we get about this here, but the tense atmosphere after it’s brought up is a hint to new viewers that it is something big that we will be addressing later.
A few notable differences for people who watched the 2001 anime, would be the scene where Kagura decides to cook for Kyo and the rest of the members of Shigure’s house. Instead of burning down the kitchen, she creates a lovely feast of food. However, in doing such she uses all of the food in the fridge.
There is no part where she destroys the laundry room by putting in too much detergent. Instead opting for her destroying the roof above the table or in other words, the floor in Kyo’s room in an attempt to get him to come to dinner. The ceiling collapsing right on the table and the spread of food that she’d made.
I’ve spent years wondering to myself what the general repair costs for Shigure’s house are. They fix the paper doors themselves, so aside from tape and the paper to add to the door, I can’t imagine those costs are too high. Though things like the roof over Tohru’s room and the ceiling above the table, those are not things that could be repaired without calling in a professional. It’s no wonder that Shigure spends most of episodes like this crying to himself about people breaking his home.
Well, with the meal ruined, Kagura heads out of the house to get groceries to make a new dinner for them. However, not without a brief talk with Shigure before leaving the house. She asks if she can stay there, though she knows she can’t. She claims that Shigure doesn’t understand, what it’s like to love someone so deeply and to be so deeply jealous of someone else.
Shigure says something along the lines of “Even I get jealous sometimes, actually.”
Which is honestly both some wonderful foreshadowing and the understatement of the century.
Tohru chases after Kagura and helps her pick up the groceries and along the way home, they get talking about Kyo and about how Tohru feels. She’s always loved the year of the cat, she’s something of a fan. Which is fine and all, but she doesn’t think that compares at all with years of knowing and truly loving and caring about Kyo.
Kagura has known him since they were children. When she met him, he was drawing a fried egg on the ground with a stick. She offered to play with him, and it’s immensely cute. It’s also immensely sad, but we won’t learn about that aspect of it for a while.
Kagura and Tohru become friends, they return home and cook hamburger steaks for the boys and Kagura places a fried egg on top of Kyo’s.
Alas, the day ends and the next morning Kagura needs to head home. After all this time together though, Tohru doesn’t know what animal Kagura is. As Kagura runs out, she collides with the paper boy. This could be bad, but Yuki thinks quickly. Covering the paper boys eyes and gets him out of there. Tohru discovers that Kagura is the boar, poor Kyo gets beaten up by said boar when Kagura misunderstands what Tohru means at one point. Kagura eventually transforms back and leaves.
While at school, Tohru hits up the library to get books on gardening and martial arts. So she can find out more about what Yuki and Kyo are into, when she receives notice that she has a phone call. It’s her Grandfather, calling to tell her that the renovations on his house are completed and she can come home. That’s the set up for next episode.
Oh boy, I can’t say i’m a fan of the content that we’re coming up on. Though I suppose it’s necessary to understand Tohru’s character, to see what kind of family she’s had to grow up with. Episode four was fantastic though! I’m really happy with the way the 2019 anime introduced Kagura’s character. It took me a bit to adjust to her dress being yellow instead of green, but as the episode passed I actually came to really enjoy the color choice.