Yume Tsukai
Family Affairs
S1 • E5 May 7, 2006 30m
A seemingly innocuous family dinner at the Kisaragi household becomes the forum for little Mayumi's affirmation of a perfect test score to give way to a Sunday trip to the zoo that comes from out of nowhere as if Mayumi's mother had predicted what her husband is going to say obfuscates Hajime's exhibition of his culinary prowess in preparing dinner that night; just as Misako is repulsing Hajime's insult, Mayumi's father arrives at the Warabe Yuusai Toy Store to commission an investigation of what he feels is an ongoing deviant diagnostic. The scant background data of the incident quickly becomes irrelevant when Rinko finds Mayumi home alone in spite of being even younger than Rinko herself and again when Mayumi changes the subject when Rinko inquires about the Daruma doll; unnerved at the prospect of Rinko learning the truth and eventually neutralizing it, the nightmare inquires Rinko her motivations before sending her on her way. Things ultimately come to a head when Touko and Hajime confirm what Rinko is already seeing for herself -- the grandmother Yoriko and her granddaughter's nuclear family frustrated that they cannot understand each other; the nightmare being neutralized with a effulgent discharge of the Dream Cyclone becomes the preamble of both Rinko and Yoriko walking away with a novel and healthy perspective of their respective families
