The Helpful Fox Senko-san 03
Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san 03
世話やきキツネの仙狐さん episode 03

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis

Senko-san loses a video game to Nakano. His reward is to fluff Senko-san, but she’s reluctant. Their antics cause their neighbor, Kouenji (Koenji) to come busting in through the front door. She’s shocked to see an adult man apparently attacking a little girl. However, Senko-san is able to defuse the situation. Further, Senko-san offers Kouenji some of their nikujaga meal. She accepts. The meal is so good, Kouenji even accepts Senko-san’s explanation that she is Nakano’s wife and mother.

Because Senko-san’s kitsune appearance had been explained as anime cosplay, Nakano and Senko-san watch the entire series. Later, the pair head to the supermarket. Although Senko-san feels Nakano worries too much, she agrees to wear a cap to cover her ears. Senko-san is amazed at the convenience of a supermarket, including the ability to buy out of season items. Nakano realizes that he enjoyed the shopping trip with Senko-san. On the trip home, Senko-san tells Nakano that if going shopping with her gives him happiness, then she’s happy with it.

Thoughts/Review

And so we come to The Helpful Fox Senko-san 03, which was adapted from chapters 3 and 4 of the source manga. And, there was some inoffensive padded added to the episode to fill time.

The Neighbor Girl

Kouenji, the neighbor girl who lives in the apartment next to Nakano’s, makes her appearance in The Helpful Fox Senko-san 03. Based on how the anime production team did things last episode, I actually figured that we’d see them bring in a later chapter with Kouenji make the entire episode about her. But that didn’t happen.

As to Kouenji, she’s pretty much a trope, support character. She sees the blinding obvious in front of her, but doesn’t put two and two together to arrive at the correct conclusion. As a result, she buys the excuse that Senko-san’s kitsune appearance is actually cosplay. And she buys the notion that Senko-san is Nakano’s wife and mother, despite Senko-san’s loli appearance.

That aside, Kouenji performs her trope roll well.

Going Shopping

I liked the shopping trip that Nakano and Senko-san took. Senko-san’s remark on being able to purchase non-seasonal items reminded me of how much we take for granted in our modern age. I do enjoy being able to purchase fresh tomatoes all year ’round.

Also, I liked Senko-san’s reactions to everything. It was very cute. And I can see how Nakano enjoyed going shopping with her because of it.

“Localization” for the Win

I’ve already ranted at FUNimation’s stupidity when it comes to the removal of Japanese honorifics from the subtitles, especially when they include them in the official name of the series. For The Helpful Fox Senko-san 03, the translator/adapter decided that Senko-san would address Nakano as “Kuroto” even though she did no such thing. It may well be that Nakano’s name is Kuroto, but that has not been established in the manga, nor anime.

As such, it is arrogant presumption to just cause Nakano to address Nakano as Kuroto UNLESS the original script had this in it. It is possible that the original script had the name added, but somehow, I doubt it. The “localization” mindset is such that accurate but readable isn’t good enough. Instead, one much rewrite things so that it mostly means the same thing, but is more “awesome” for localization purposes. 😑

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Well, I need to wrap up my review of The Helpful Fox Senko-san 03. Overall, I found the episode fun for what it was, despite FUNimation’s subtitles. The additional padding added to the episode for runtime does slow down the pacing, but it isn’t too bad.

Note: I’m on the road at the moment and won’t be home until June. So these reviews may be delayed as this one was. 😅