Review of Kakushigoto

I love stories about parent child relationships. I am aware that they always are in some way unrealistic and idealized, but they provide me with a pure joy I do not feel with other emotionally driven stories like for example romance. Kakushigoto's fundamental story about a single father raising his daughter is wonderful and whenever the show focuses on it, it is masterfully executed. But Kakushigoto of course is about more than this. It is the story of a dirty comedy mangaka juggling his day-to-day work and his care for his daughter while hiding his true occupation. This takes up the majority of the show's runtime andis largely entirely comedic.

Unfortunately the humour in Kakushigoto largely falls flat for me and many times did I sit through an episode not out of enjoyment of the scene to scene events, but purely in hopes of getting to watch another interaction between Hime and Kakushi, to get another piece of their relationship.

Regarding the audiovisual presentation, I did enjoy the animation and character designs, particularly Gotou Kakushi. He is a very refreshingly non-stereotypical, neither "proper manly" nor "nerdy otaku", but a very likeable and relatable normal person. I can not really comment on the audio, but I loved the ending theme ("Kimi wa Tennenshoku").

Ultimately Kakushigoto suffers from the common problem with anime that try to combine a emotional/serious story with light-hearted comedy, that being a poor management of tone. When a show repeatedly flips it's tone mid-scene, it is difficult for the viewer to open up emotionally. At least that is the case for me.