10 Second Anime - Kuma Miko - Episode 7

Machi tries cooking rice with electricity. Natsu improvises a ceremony.

Episode 7 - "「キカセ」　(Kikase)"

Heh.

There wasn't an official translation of the title, but I'm guessing it comes from きかせる (kikaseru) which has a couple of homonyms. The first is 効かせる, which means "to season (as with salt); to bring out the taste; to use, to exercise, to display," which definitely fits the first half of the episode. The other word is 聞かせる, which means "to read to, to sing for, to inform, to tell; to persuade, to make understand," which is what Natsu did for the old people in the second half.

Machi must be pretty strong if she's chopping wood every day to boil water and cook rice in the traditional way.

And she's been doing it a long time. Ever since "Fuchi" told her to.

We haven't met this grandmother-like lady yet. It appears to me that she was the Kuma Miko before Machi and that Natsu and she only recently paired up to be the official Village and Mountain God representatives.

Natsu obviously grew into a big bear following the usual maturation rate, but there must have been a time when he didn't embrace modern technology as he so readily does now. I wonder if there's a story about that change.

The secluded shrine island has no gas lines, but it does have electricity. Machi has been using light switches and televisions, so why does she think electricity somehow magically stays in the pot for the rice cooker? It could be her irrational fear of new things just makes her go a little crazy and forget the things she already knows. That's just how anxiety works.

And then we get comedy from an electrical fire.

This was obviously played for laughs and drama. When the only casualty was the nice rice cooker after a wall of fire erupts, there's no way the fire got that big.

Well, at least rice cooked in a no-stick pot tastes better than before, even if it still wood fire boiled.

The second half had a bunch of old people surprising Machi and Natsu by gathering for a ritual they knew nothing about. It was apparently scheduled by Granny Fuchi who had already left on some hot spring trip.

I don't think it's fair that Natsu keeps losing at that kids' game because his paw can't make a gun shape.

There were lots of little bits of comedy thrown around and clues about what Yoshio is supposed to be doing for the village as the "miko caretaker."

Machi was so smugly happy that she didn't have to do anything for the "ritual." I didn't know that Natsu had is own separate duties for the shrine. Maybe he didn't either.

Ha! The three sacred treasures after WWII are the refrigerator, washing machine and television!

The old folks seemed pretty receptive to his message of relying on the internet to ship them stuff so they don't have to go to so much trouble of traveling far away for shopping.

Natsu must have a stipend or an allowance. Who pays for his gadgets?

Uh oh. The mousy office worker Yosuda looks like she's being positioned as comedic competition against Hibiki for Yoshio's attention.

That look on Yoshio's face at the end has me worried he's about to unleash his Miko Idol project.