Review of Dagashi Kashi

An adaptation of Kotoyama’s slice-of-life comedy manga of the same name, Dagashi Kashi focuses on Kokonotsu Shikada, the son of a rural dagashi shop owner who is trying to talk his son in inheriting his business. Things get more bizarre when the eccentric Hotaru Shidare attempts to recruit Kokonotsu’s father to work for her family’s dagashi company and he won’t accept work from her unless Kokonotsu chooses to pursue the family business. This leads Hotaru to attempt persuading Kokonotsu to inherit his family’s business through use of tactics like games, stories, and riddles using dagashi to convince him to pursue it. For anyone not aware, dagashiis cheap candy and snacks that are typically sold to children in Japan. Dagashi Kashi appears to be aimed at those who dabble heavily into the snacks considering Hotaru’s obsessive love for them and the large amount of information she has on various forms of snacks she consumes. Doing some research, it does appear that the series does dabble into actual brand name dagashi, which may offer some educational value to anyone interested in learning more about the types of snacks. But whether or not this grabs viewer interest may depend on familiarity with dagashi or being a snack aficionado.

Episodes of the series are structured into two to three segments where Kokonotsu and his friends, the two Endo siblings, interact with Hotaru and get involved in some sort of conversation or activity involving the use of dagashi. The major characters have their typical character types they follow throughout the series and they largely stick with them, as Dagashi Kashi is more focused on its comedy and dabbling into dagashi. For the most part with me, the comedy mostly fell flat as it relies rather heavily on sexual humor and Hotaru’s eccentricity to attempt carrying things, making it feel rather one-note and repetitive with the types of gags it attempts.

In short, I’m rather indifferent on Dagashi Kashi as an anime comedy. Its humor didn’t do much to amuse me and its focus on dagashi gives me the impression this show may have a niche appeal to anyone outside Japan, being no different to other anime titles made more in mind for fans of particular hobbies and popular cultural trends within Japan. Definitely a series where you mileage may vary with it.