Kobato. 14 : Lost Potatoes

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Kobato episode 14, nicely wrapped up for you and tied together with a nice pink fluffy ribbon. Enjoy~

We start the episode with Puppy-san getting annoyed over Kobato’s outfit. Kobato however doesn’t seem to spot anything wrong, she explains that she’s going on a field trip together with the people from the nursery.

Kobato showing off her Sawako-proof suit.

Kobato further explains that she saw a picture in some magazine with people picking up potatoes, obviously farmers and a boy who’s catching bugs. Puppy-san has enough of it and blows the crossbreed bug catcher-farmer away.

Later on, everyone of the nursery is helping out some obaa-chan getting rid of weed picking up potatoes in garden. Suddenly, Kobato notices a boy who’s also picking up potatoes. He is older than the others and doesn’t belong with the children of the nursery. Mr Cool, who’s also there acting cool and stuff, walks over to the guy and asks him what he’s doing there. The boy seems a little agitated, but then quickly grabs his bag with potatoes and runs off. Fujimoto decides to chase him, but stops when he notices the boy had (accidentally) dropped the potatoes.

At the end of the field trip, everyone gathers their potatoes. Everyone is surprised when they see how many potatoes Kobato gathered. Unfortunately, Kobato’s happiness doesn’t last long. Mr Cool says he told everyone to gather as many as they can carry…

And there's her first Sawako expression!

Kobato is annoyed when she sees Mr Cool attitude and declares she’ll carry them all. When Kobato tries to carry the potatoes, Puppy-san gets squeezed by them. The farm lady then happens to drive by with a little pick-up truck and offers Kobato some help. Mr Cool goes tsundere “hmph” and Kobato goes “yay~”.

At the nursery, Mr Cool becomes Mac Cool for a while when he grills or roasts or whatevers the potatoes. The children enjoy their meal, but Fujimoto wonders what they’ll do with the remaining potatoes. Sayaka suggests to hand them out in the neighborhood together with Kobato. Fujimoto is against it, but Sayaka wants Kobato to get in touch with the neighbors.

And so they go out. Mr Cool tells Kobato not to get in the way as he shares out the potatoes. Kobato is frustrated, but Ioryogi tells her to look at the bright side of things. He’s carrying the potatoes for her afterall. So, they go, from door to door handing away potatoes for free and no one seems to find it strange~

Take or food and be quiet!

The day turns into evening when Kobato and Fujimoto finish their tour, well, almost finish. They arrive at Baa-chan’s house (you know, that old lady from episode 1) and Milk (you know, that cat from episode 8) greets Kobato with a lovely “nyaa~”, this is supposed to be their last stop. As they offer their potatoes, Fujimoto suddenly notices the boy from earlier busy washing some potatoes. Fujimoto asks the old lady if she knows him, but she answers that he only arrived a while ago asking for some water to wash his potatoes. Mr Cool turns into Mr Bond and chases the midget.

Yeaaaah... like they have time to deal with it.

He easily catches the boy, who still resists fiercely making the contents of his bag drop out. Inside the bag were some life provisions and coins. Kobato and Baa-chan arrive asking what’s going on, Mr Cool tells them they’re dealing with a runaway.

After the break, Kobato, Mr Cool and the runaway are at the park. Fujimoto asks the boy’s name, but he stays silent. Only when Kobato asks him gently, he tells them his name is Keita. Kobato then asks why he ran away. He tells her he wanted to find his old house, the house in which he used to live before his mom had to move for her job. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to find his home yet and Mr Cool assumes he forgot the route. Keita gets angry saying he didn’t, he just doesn’t remember it quite well… (so yeah, he forgot). Kobato asks Keita to draw his home.

Seems like he met Ioryogi before...

Meanwhile Fujimoto spots a nick plate on Keita’s bag. He checks it and finds a phone number underneath the boy’s name. Keita continues telling Kobato about the house and about his mother whom he played with a lot. Suddenly the boy’s eyes fill up with tears and he says he wants to find their old house. Kobato asks Fujimoto, who was about to make a phone call, to find Keita’s house together. Mr Cool, who’s being remembered of his past when seeing the boy, sighs and agrees on the proposal.

It’s quite a hassle to go around the town with a boy who doesn’t really remember his old place, but after a while, Keita finally recognizes some spots. When he suddenly stops at a vending machine to buy a drink, he notices his pocket money almost gone. He says he needs to be “thrifty” and puts his wallet away again. Kobato and Fujimoto are surprised that he knows such a difficult word, but the boy says he heard his mom say it a lot.

Mr Cool finds an easy solution for his problem. A basket of pears is placed on the wall with a note sticking to it saying “FREE!”.

No... cause pears don't look like apples...

Suddenly, Keita sees the dog he’s been talking about, also the mail box from the drawing is up ahead and yes, the house is Keita’s old house. They enter the garden and scan around. Fujimoto wants to enter, but Keita stops him from breaking inside.

At night, Kobato asks Keita if he doesn’t wanna go back home. The boy answers he doesn’t want to because his grandpa is there. The boy says his grandpa is mean guy who always comments on his behavior. Obviously, the grandpa is just saying what every parent would to his slacking child, but since we’re dealing with a kid, we’ll just follow his way of thinking. Fujimoto tells the boy that Sayaka also makes the children at the nursery eat their vegetables and fish since they’re nutritious.

When Keita sneezes, Fujimoto drops his coat on the boy’s shoulder. Keita gets a flashback of his grandpa and him in a similar situation. Kobato tells the boy it’s hard to judge someone as good or bad sometimes. Fujimoto suddenly drops down the box with Kobato’s potato leftovers and tells Keita to roast them at home.

This is Tokyo Magnitude all over again...

They head towards the station until they Keita’s grandfather call Keita’s name. The boy immediately runs over to greet is grandfather and receives since right punch as punishment. However, he also receives a jacket from his grandfather making it all sweet ending again~

While the grandfather and Keita head in the station, Fujimoto puts off his phone. He called the boy’s mother and informed her about her son’s whereabouts. Then the two head back to the nursery. On their way back, they meet Domoto, Mr Cool quickly thinks of an excuse to get away. Kobato however notes that Fujimoto isn’t just a bully, but also a nice person.

Oh right, before I forget to end, Kobato also received a sparkly new konpeito!

_

Thoughts :

Once again, an episode without much plot. The story wasn’t really great either. I actually feel I kinda wasted my time here… I guess that’s what happens when you get a 24 episodes series like this. Kobato’s cuteness alone doesn’t satisfy me anymore to find an episode good or bad. In this case the story should make up for it, but like I said it wasn’t much of a good story. I’m disappointed at this point of the series and I hope it gets better soon or I might even drop this.

Kyon, at your service~