Sushi Sitter

**"Sushi Sitter"** is the forty-seventh episode of *Kobushi*. It was released on July 15, 2013, on Gulli, and later on February 2, 2015, on Mangas.

## Synopsis

Toro must look after his nephew, Maguro. Seeing that he admires him, the boastful Toro tells him his exploits, including fighting against the terrible Néko.

Maguro then decides in secret to impress his uncle ...

## Plot

The episode begins with Toro introducing his friends and Master Tako to Maguro, his first cousin-once-removed. He explains to them that he's watching over him for a day, but he's visibly annoyed about his role as the babysitter while he's supposed to be in samurai training. Shaké offers to look after Maguro while Toro is in class and he gladly accepts. However, Maguro refuses to be with Shaké since he prefers to stay with his "uncle" and wants to watch him during his training. Master Tako manages to convince Maguro to stay with Shaké by telling him that if he wants to be a samurai, he must listen to her which Maguro has to obey his advice.

At Shaké's lampion, Shaké keeps Maguro busy by teaching him how to blow-paint and he immediately takes a liking to it. While at the same time, Master Toro's students are taking their workout class when Toro suddenly gets a "back cramp". He excuses himself from the class and leaves the dojo, revealing that he doesn't really have a back cramp and he decides to leave the class to get to Shaké's, believing that Shaké would admire both him and Maguro while she takes care of the kid. However, when Toro arrives, it turns out that Maguro has innocently created a huge mess inside the lampion while he blow-paint and get paints all over Shaké. Shaké angrily kicks both Maguro and Toro out of her lampion since she can't take Maguro's wild antics any longer. Maguro, unaware of his actions, asks Toro if he wants to play with Shaké too, but Toro explains to him that it's his turn to look after him.

Later at the village, Toro found out that Maguro deeply admires him because of his training to be a samurai and that he wants to be like him too. When Maguro believes that Toro refuses to tell him his samurai adventures and thought his stories aren't real, Toro, not wanting his ego to be bruised, boastfully claims that he once fought Néko barehanded to impress Maguro. Toro walks his "nephew" back to his dojo as he continues telling his story to him to make himself look better before he starts taking a nap after a long day of training. However, unbeknownst to him, Maguro believes everything he said from his "story" and he decides that he wants to impress Toro by defeating Néko himself.

Maguro grabs Toro's toothpick sword and manages to escape from the village by manipulating the Sushi Guard into making him let him go out since it's the Sushi Guard's duty to stop any intruders from entering the village and not from exiting it. Maguro gets to Néko's altar, but the porcelain cat easily captures the tuna sushi by grabbing him with his chopsticks. Néko doesn't take Maguro's willingness to defeat him very seriously due to his young age and he decides that he and Maguro should play a "game" instead.

Back at the dojo, Toro wakes up from his nap and finds out that Maguro has escaped with his sword. Panicked, Toro searches everywhere in the village for Maguro since it's his responsibility to look after him. He even asked Shaké about if she has seen him near her lampion, but she's still angry about the blow-paint incident and claims that Toro had lost Maguro. Toro, not wanting her to become angrier, explains that he and Maguro are playing "hide-and-seek" and he runs off to where the Sushi Guard is. The guard explains to him that he did saw Maguro and he's off to Néko's altar. Toro angrily asks him why the guard doesn't stop Maguro from leaving, and he explains that it's his duty to stop intruders from entering and not from exiting, much to Toro's chagrin.

Toro reaches to Néko's altar and sees that the porcelain cat is chasing after Maguro. He rushes to come to rescue his "nephew", however, it turns out that Néko and Maguro are actually playing tag and Néko means no harm to the young tuna sushi. Toro crashes into Sho, Yu, and Ka upon realizing the truth, knocking the three sauce flasks off the table. Maguro reveals to Néko that Toro is his "uncle" and the porcelain cat reveals to the red tuna sushi that he has mercy to Maguro and scolds at Toro for his poor parenting skills while looking after the kid. Néko lets both Toro and Maguro leave the altar, not wanting to eat them because of his soft spot for children, much to his three sauce flasks' confusion.

At the village, Toro explains to Maguro that he must not tell his mother about what happened earlier, out of fear of being in trouble by his cousin if she finds out Néko almost want to eat her son. Maguro reveals to Toro that Néko is actually a very friendly porcelain cat and he asks his "uncle" if he'll play with him again the next time he visits the village, but Toro is uncertain if Néko would try to eat Maguro the second time he sees him. Toro then assures his "nephew" that they'll see the California Rolls and the Yakuza instead.

## Characters

* Toro
* Maguro
* Néko
* Shaké
* Master Tako
* Sho, Yu, and Ka
* Sushi Guard
* Ebi
* Onigiri (background)
* Tamago (background)
* Banh Boi (background)
* Hokkigaï (background)
* Tekka (background)
* Torigai (background)
* Maguro's mother (mentioned)
* The Yakuza (mentioned)
* The Californian Rolls (mentioned)
* Villagers

## Trivia

* The episode title is a play on the word "babysitter".
* This episode revealed that Toro has a female cousin as well as a first cousin once removed named Maguro.
* This episode shows that despite Néko's appetite for sushi, he has a soft spot for children and have mercy towards young sushi.
* The episode has a similar plot to "The Braggarts", a *Sammy & Co* episode which is from another ZAG Toon series. Both episodes feature a male protagonist babysitting their younger male distant cousin for a day at a village (Toro to Maguro, while Ricky to Marius). After the younger relative (Maguro and Marius) accused the protagonist (Toro and Ricky) of being a coward despite they're only trying to protect them from the dangers outside the village, the protagonist of the two respective shows both happened to boasted a false exaggerated story of themselves fighting the main antagonist (Toro to Néko, while Ricky to Big Boss) in front of their younger relative to make themselves look better when they thought their ego is being bruised by them. Coincidentally, their exaggerated false story unintentionally caused their respective distant cousins to believe everything they said which leads to them escaping from the village to fight against the main antagonist so they could impress them. However, the difference between the two episodes is that while Marius puts himself in danger because he was being tailed by a barracuda while on his way to Big Boss's place, Maguro does not put into any real danger at Néko's altar and he manages to befriend the antagonist instead.
* Despite Toro is Maguro's first cousin once removed, he always refers to him as his "uncle". This is not an error since in certain cultures, referring to a distant relative as an aunt or uncle is seen as a sign of respect, while in others, it is a sign of affection.

### Errors

* During Master Tako's workout class, Tamago is in front of Toro. However when Toro gets his "back cramp", Tamago appears on his right.
* When Toro arrives to pick up Maguro and Shaké opens her lampion door, she doesn't have any blue paint on the right side of her face.
* When the scene shows Shaké being covered in paint, the paints on her kimono is inconsistent in two different shots.

## References

1. ↑ https://playtv.fr/programmes-tv/gulli/15-07-2013/
2. ↑ https://playtv.fr/programmes-tv/mangas/02-02-2015/
3. ↑ https://playtv.fr/programme-tv/671732/kobushi/