KONOHANA KITAN Episode 10: A New Perspective

In episode 10 of KONOHANA KITAN, there is a mix-up leading to a small problem, and then a familiar face comes to stay at Konohanatei.The episode begins with an exhausted Satsuki deciding to take a break. She mistakes some shrinking medicine for snacks, and well – prepare yourselves for this.

Tiny Satsuki

Yep, Satsuki turns tiny. Now, just let me compose myself…
Ahem, well, now that I’ve taken a moment, I’m sure I-

Please stop, KONOHANA KITAN, I can’t handle this!

Yuzu and Ren’s reaction to seeing Satsuki in the dress Ren made for her pretty much sum up my feelings too. Okiku seems less than impressed to see another ‘doll’.
Of course, being so small will have an impact on Satsuki’s work, but she can still give out orders.

Satsuki perches on Yuzu’s shoulder whilst giving out orders

We get to see a rather amusing instance of ‘Yuzu Translate’ when Satsuki wants to shout something at Natsume.
A guest arrives, and Yuzu tends to her with Satsuki remaining on her shoulder.

Yuzu surpasses Satsuki’s expectations when tending to this guest

Satsuki is surprised to see that Yuzu was able to determine that the guest came from the mountains. Yuzu talks to the guest about the scenery of the mountains, as well as taking her to the garden to enjoy the scenery there.
Later on, Yuzu starts crying and tells Satsuki that she misses her normal self. She says she’ll do anything she can to return her to normal.

Yuzu wakes up to discover that Satsuki has returned to normal

So it turns out that Kiri gave Satsuki the medicine to return to normal as she slept. However, she doesn’t tell Satsuki that and instead suggests that she was returned to normal by true love’s kiss, like in the fairy tales.

Satsuki believes Kiri’s little lie, and assumes that it was Yuzu who kissed her

Satsuki’s reaction to Kiri’s tale is pretty amusing. She can’t bring herself to actually ask Yuzu if she kissed her, though.

Ayame and Hiiragi arrive at Konohanatei

Up next, Satsuki’s sister, Hiiragi, comes to stay at Konohanatei for a little while. She is accompanied by Ayame.
Kiri decides that Satsuki will be the one to attend them, and of course Yuzu accompanies Satsuki. Hiiragi pretty much just causes trouble for Satsuki, whilst revealing some embarrassing moments of her past. Yuzu doesn’t seem to mind too much, though.
Yuzu does mind when Ayame mentions the possibility of Satsuki going to the shrine, though…

Hiiragi proves to be popular

Later on, a girl I can only assume to be Kaguya (as in the one from the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter – again, this is where my knowledge comes from Touhou) gets quite attached to Hiiragi. Whilst Hiiragi is off playing with the girl, Satsuki says to Yuzu that she may be proud of her sister.
The girl makes quite a fuss later on, wanting to see the kagura dance. Hiiragi volunteers, and Ayame suddenly falls faint from having stayed in the bath too long… She’s lying, but either way, Satsuki is talked into dancing with her.

Hiiragi and Satsuki dance together

Satsuki doesn’t stick around after the dance is done. Yuzu goes out to find her, and we get some tearful scenes.

Yuzu catches up with Satsuki

Satsuki still feels inadequate next to her sister, and she’s shedding a few tears over that. Yuzu blames herself for talking Satsuki into doing it, and weeps as she considers how Satsuki has always been compared to her sister.
However, Satsuki says she was merely doing her duty as an attendant. If the guest is happy, then she is happy as well.
The episode ends by expanding a bit more on the reasons why Satsuki was sent to Konohanatei and Hiiragi became a priestess. Perhaps Satsuki isn’t actually so inadequate compared to her sister after all…

For me, I enjoyed the first half of this episode more than the second half. We got tiny Satsuki spending time with Yuzu – that’s exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see. I mean, I would have been happy with regular size Satsuki as well, but why not make her adorably tiny?
The stuff with Hiiragi was all right, but it really didn’t have the same impact on me. I don’t really have too much to say about Hiiragi or Ayame. They had their roles, but I just don’t find them endearing as other guests we have seen at Konohanatei.

Regardless, an overall enjoyable episode. We’re rapidly heading towards the end of this season, and I can only wonder if we are ever going to get that origin story for Kiri and Sakura fellow fans want to see.
For now, though, we got some more development between Yuzu and Satsuki, and I’m certainly fine with that. I don’t think they’ll quite get up to the same level as Ren and Natsume before the end of the show, though I’d be happy to be proven wrong.