Episode 26

**Gash's One Day**(ガッシュの一日, *Gasshu no Ichinichi*) is the 26th episode of the Konjiki no Gash Bell!! Anime. This episode first aired in Japan on October 5, 2003.

## Overview

While Kiyomaro is at school one day, Gash has the entire day to himself and spends it visiting various places in town. At the same time, a gigantic woman shows up to town and eventually meets Gash. Hearing that she's in need of help to find someone, Gash joins her search.

## Plot

Suzume spots Kiyomaro walking to school and rushes to catch up with him. She then notices that Gash isn't with him and asks about his whereabouts. Kiyomaro responds saying that Gash had told him he had something to do today. As a group of young children pass by him, Kiyomaro wonders to himself what Gash even does when he's not around. At home, Hana hands Gash a wrapped bento box to have for lunch that afternoon. On his way out, Gash tries to invite Umagon to head out and play with him but Umagon declines this in order to continue sleeping. After having his "third generation" Vulcan 300 pay respects by the small grave for the previous Vulcans, Gash and his current Vulcan finally head out to enjoy their day.

While wandering through the neighborhood, Gash uses his imagination playing with the red street cones and a samurai bald cap that he finds on the street until he encounters a neighbor's dog who happens to have a rather luxurious fur. Fixated on the dog's fur, Gash tries to reach out to it only to have the dog try and bite him for reaching too close. Still determined, Gash makes every effort to try and reach out to it without being attacked by the dog. The dog then finds itself unable to lunge out at Gash due to being constrained by a chain leash. Gash then decides to give this dog his samurai bald cap then waves the dog goodbye as he continues his day.

At the Mochinoki Kindergarten, a small class of children dance and sing along to a bird themed guessing game. Gash participates in this activity from just outside the kindergarten and has fun doing so. When it comes time to guess the next type of bird in the game, Gash helps a child there name the correct bird. When Gash hears that tomorrow the class will do a fish dance tomorrow, he makes no hesitation in declaring that he'll come back tomorrow for that. In his next stop, he finds himself being chased around the park by Naomi in her toy car. Despite having run into several obstacles in her pursuit, Naomi still manages to catch up to Gash and crash into him.

Soon after, Gash pays a visit to the Mochinoki Botanical Gardens where he waters some potted plants with Tsukushi. When Tsukushi asks Gash if he's ready to have lunch which, Gash then remembers that he has a special place he plans on having lunch at and then heads off. On a hilltop overlooking the entire town, Gash sits himself down and reaches for the lunch he had tucked away into his mantle only to find out it's not there anymore. He then suddenly recalls that after he and Naomi crashed into each other at the park, he had left his lunch behind and figures that Naomi must be eating it. Now left hungry with no lunch with him, Gash cries alone on the hilltop until a towering figure of a person approaches him and asks him what's wrong.

Granny Anan then sits with Gash listening to his troubles and comments on how disappointing it must be for him to lose his lunch the way he did. She then offers Gash some of her lunch, consisting of large onigiri, fish, and tea, which immediately cheers Gash up. After lunch, the two of them formally introduce themselves to each other. Seeing as how kind Granny Anan was to him, Gash insists on returning the favor to her. Hearing this, she tells Gash that she came to town in hopes of looking for someone. As the two of them head downtown, Granny Anan explains that she had received a letter from her son, Tadashi, where he wrote to her saying that he had met a girl who he wants to marry. Although the letter appears smudged, Gash was able to read aloud the name of the girl mentioned in the letter, "Hiromi". Hearing the name Hiromi causes Granny Anan to stop in her tracks and Gash soon asks if she had come to town to meet her which she confirms that's the case. The two of them head off once again as Gash brings up the idea of going to the Mochinoki Police Station first to ask about Hiromi.

Unfortunately for them, they hear from an officer there that there's little they can do to find someone with such a common name. While Granny Anan and Gash sit outside feeling as if they're at a dead end, Gash notices Granny Anan's worn out footwear and asks how far she had traveled. She then explains that she had walked at least three mountain ranges just to be able to see the future wife of her one and only child. While she would be glad to even meet her for even just a moment, she wants to keep this a secret from her son. Suddenly, Gash gets an idea and asks Granny Anan to take him to where her son lives. At Tadashi's apartment, Gash picks up a towel that belongs to Hiromi and begins to sniff it. Although skeptical at first wondering if Gash could locate Hiromi by scent alone, Gash reassures Granny Anan that he had been able to find Kiyomaro through scent and feels confident he's able to do the same with locating Hiromi.

Downtown, as Gash begins to follow his nose in a search for Hiromi, he asks Granny Anan what she plans on doing when they find her. She then goes on to talk about how she had her son late in life and felt that him having independence and facing life's troubles are the best ways to prepare for adulthood. And him now giving her the news he's getting married makes her feel very happy for him. Gash comments on this saying he hopes Hiromi is a nice person to which Granny Anan feels the same since her son chose her. The atmosphere then suddenly turns tense when Gash hypothetically asks her if Hiromis isn't a nice person. Granny Anan tells Gash that if Hiromi is the type of person who wears excessive make-up, jewelry and hair dye and ruins her son, she would end up wanting to beat her up. Gash, terrified with this response, tries to convince Granny Anan not to do that as it would make her son upset but Granny Anan reassures him claiming she was just joking. Soon after, a bus passes by and Gash tells her that he thinks she's close by. The two of them then end up spotting Hiromi just ahead of them waiting for the bus. Her overall appearance however fits the description of what Granny Anan had told Gash about and he begins to worry about Granny Anan's reaction to this. Granny Anan then becomes riled up seeing Hiromi and soon charges after her and the bus she had boarded on to. Remembering Granny Anan's threat to potentially harm Hiromi, Gash tries his best to keep up with her as she charges toward the bus. He ends up passing by Granny Anan as he starts to pick up the pace running but as the bus comes to a sudden halt at a red light, Gash ends up crashing into the bus and eventually passes out.

Gash wakes up again at a nearby park just at sunset. As he checks his surroundings, he sees Granny Anan confronting Hiromi and sees her closed fist extending out to her. Gash panics and tries to plead with Granny Anan to not beat Hiromi to death but stops when he sees that she was actually presenting Hiromi with a special gift. In her hands is a small box containing her old wedding ring which she holds out to Hiromi and with a tearful smile asks her to take good care of her son. Hiromi is also shown to be in tears accepting both her gift and accepting Granny Anan as her new mother. As Gash watches this tender moment, he thinks to himself that it was silly of him to take her joke so seriously and realizes that from the very beginning, she had accepted her son's choice and wished for nothing but happiness for him. He starts to tear up as well as he learns that this is what the spirit of motherhood truly is. As he prepares to leave with Vulcan in hand, Gash wonders to himself if he also has a mother like that as well.

Gash comes home later that day and Kiyomaro asks him about what it was he was doing being out so late. Gash casually responds to this simply stating it's been the same as always with him just having fun playing. As Gash passes by Kiyomaro, Kiyomaro thinks to himself that it seems that Gash seems to have matured a little and continues to learn and grow even when he's not around.

## Features

### Characters by Appearance

* Suzume Mizuno
* Kiyomaro Takamine
* Gash Bell
* Hana Takamine
* Umagon
* Granny Anan
* Naomi
* Tsukushi Kinoyama

### Locations

* Mochinoki City
	+ Takamine Residence

## Manga & Anime Differences

* Suzume and Umagon make no appearance in the original chapters this episode was based on and events involving them are filler.
* Tadashi's letter to Granny Anan was originally legible enough to read in the manga. In the anime, the writing is mostly blurred out except for where Hiromi's name is written.

## Censorship & Other Localization Differences

* Writing on the side of Gash's Vulcan stating "Third Generation Vulcan" was removed in the VIZ localization.
* A crudely drawn pair of boxers was edited over Gash who briefly appears nude in a scene where he tries to imagine the fish dance in the VIZ localization.
* The plant that Gash waters at the Botanical Gardens had a white name tag showing that Gash's plant was named "Nyokimaro". This name tag would eventually have this name removed and replaced by illegible scribbles.
* For unknown reasons, some frames that feature Vulcan were recycled and replaced other existing frames of Vulcan. A frame in particular of Vulcan appearing "sad" was replaced by a frame of Vulcan where it did not appear so.
* All scenes showing Granny Anan smoking and holding her smoking pipe were either removed or edited out.