The chaotic story of a responsible Dad that’s also a pervy ecchi manga artist.
Plot summary
By night, Kakushi Gotō is the doting (single) father of a young girl.
By day, he’s a published ecchi manga artist (indeed, that most honourable of professions!) And yet he’s unbelievably ashamed of his job and will leave no stone unturned to hide it from his precious girl!
Is the Kakushigoto anime any good?
What a dense episode! Part manga industry satire, part family drama, Kakushigoto is a wholesome Dad anime that plays with the notions of propriety and responsibility that come with being a respectable parent versus with the reality of making your living from a manga with a name like “Tights in the Wind”. It’s full of jokes and jabs at popular manga (Attack on Titan, take a bow!), and left me feeling warm and happy. It has a lovely, vibrant aesthetic too.
Stray notes on Kakushigoto
- The Kakushigoto anime is based on a manga by Kōji Kumeta, author of dark comedy Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve heard it’s quite good?
- Kōji Kumeta loves a pun. According to a post on Reddit, the main character’s name (Gotou Kakushi) is a pun with multiple meanings: “secret/something hidden” and “drawing/writing job”. It seems like all of the characters were named with a pun in mind!
- I pride myself on being able to read subtitles pretty fast, but even I had to pause this episode a few times to catch up. It’s chaotic and full of energy.
- I couldn’t tell you how often anime acts as a springboard to dive into the deeper waters of Japanese pop culture, which is to say, I’d somehow lived my life until this very day without ever hearing an Eiichi Ohtaki track and now I feel like I’ve just opened a treasure-chest! What a voice! Eiichi Ohtaki’s song, “Kimi wa Tenneniro (君は天然色)“, is the ending song for Kakushigoto. If, like me, you sense a classic vibe to his music, it’s because Ohtaki was mostly active in the Seventies and Eighties. He sadly passed in 2013, but from all accounts, he left behind an amazing discography.
- Want more Dad anime? Barakamon is really good!
What did you make of Kakushigoto?
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