Elegant Yokai Apartment Life

Episode 14

Hase is back, and with him not only insane heaps of omiyage, but a new OP and ED, both pleasant enough but nothing to write home about.

I always feel a bit conflicted about Hase. On the one hand, he's insufferably cool and annoyingly caring. On the other hand, having him around frequently prompts Yushi to go into voice-over narration mode to muse about their awesome friendship way more than necessary. Whenever they're on screen together, the two of them already act like long-term friends, making the extra "depth" feel unnecessarily forceful and terribly inorganic – we see quite enough of the magic shine through in their interactions. We don't need to have Yushi talk us through what happened before, back when Hase was the one special person in his life and he (felt like he) had no one else. We see where it got them and can extrapolate from there just fine.

But even Hase and his mostly thoughtful presents can't compete with Kotobuki-so's landlord, who singlehandedly builds a waterfall into the Yokai Apartments' already spectacular onsen basement. It's actually more like a portal or supernatural gate of some sorts, which finally allows Akine to upgrade her misogi from a measly garden hose to a full-fledged beautiful waterfall, making it official: I really want to live in that apartment building.

Also back is Antiquary, just in time to be graced with one of those staple compliments every gaijin has to smile through in Japan. He's far from annoyed when he finally finds someone willing to humor his shenanigans in Hase. And who knows, maybe the protective and healing qualities of what may or may not be a unicorn horn will become relevant in the future.

For now, the future will bring us a hilariously over-the-top badass new teacher. With both him and the new student featured in the new OP, some focus might shift toward the school in the coming episodes. I've been looking forward to seeing Yushi's enhanced interaction skills get applied to his non-magical social life, so let's see what these new characters will be able to add now that summer is coming to a close.

Yushi sure had a good summer (even though he and Hase should take notes from the landlord on how to consume a watermelon). Visiting his parents' grave with a smile, Yushi openheartedly admits wanting to push forward and see how far he might go. I'm sure they'd be very happy to see their once lost son this way.

Rating: B-

Elegant Yokai Apartment Life is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Anne is a translator and fiction addict who writes about anime at Floating Words and on Twitter.