The Helpful Fox Senko-san 12
Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san 12
世話やきキツネの仙狐さん episode 12

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis

Nakano gets a desperate call from his coworker, begging him to come back to work. Nakano agrees, but can’t get in touch with Senko-san. He leaves the following day to return home, where he finds Senko-san is not there. Nakano runs into Koenji, who lets him know that Senko-san left the day before. This causes Nakano to think that Senko-san has abandoned him.

Meanwhile, Senko-san makes food for Sora and Shiro. Sora confronts Senko-san on her relationship with Nakano. Despite the fact that she will outlive her human companion, Senko-san has vowed to stay with him. She returns to Earth, where she runs into Nakano. He states his worry, so she explains what happened. They decide to have an impromptu hanami to look at the sakura. They are soon joined by Shiro and Koenji. Senko-san and Nakano vow to stay together.

Thoughts/Review

With The Helpful Fox Senko-san 12, the series comes to a merciful end, though at least the manga is still ongoing and so much better than the anime. And although the story in this episode was cliched melodrama and resolution, the anime actually did finish by taking material from chapter 12 of the manga.

Forced Melodrama

I really dislike forced melodrama. The Helpful Fox Senko-san 12 was filled with this. What irritates me is that there’s no logical reason for the melodrama. For a start, why wouldn’t Senko-san have simply told Nakano that while he was away with family, she was going to return to the kitsune dimension to take care of business there, but she’d return before he was scheduled to return? Telling him this seems like something she would do, not something she wouldn’t do.

Next, why did Senko-san pack up all her belongings if she was only going to be gone for a day or two? Again, it makes no logical sense. Clearly, it was done for melodramatic purposes to make the audience think she was just leaving.

Then we had the work stupidity. Nakano gets slammed for not taking paid vacation, then he’s out of the office for a day and, “COME BACK OFF YOUR PAID VACATION NOW!” 🙄 I’ve had to work on vacation before, but not anything stupid like this episode showed, which was to add to the melodrama.

And though I could go on at length, I’ll only add one more example. Even if Senko-san was returning home ’cause “reasons,” why would this impact Shiro’s friendship with Koenji? Again, there’s no logical reason for Shiro to stop seeing Koenji other than “melodrama!”

The Chapter 12 Changes

Obviously, The Helpful Fox Senko-san 12 would have to modify things from chapter 12 of the manga in order to make it fit this new story. But I actually found one positive change amongst the negative.

On the negative front, when Nakano encounters Senko-san under a cherry tree in the manga, she’d already been drinking for quite a while. Thus it made sense that she’d be drunk, after consuming two bottles of adult beverage. However, in the anime, she hadn’t been drinking at all when she encounters Nakano. She had no time to consume two bottles of sake, yet by the time she gets everything laid out, she’s somehow consumed two bottles and is drunk.

On the positive front, I did like that Shiro and Koenji joined Senko-san and Nakano. That was not in the original manga.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, The Helpful Fox Senko-san 12 was not an episode I really enjoyed, thanks to the forced melodrama added to the anime’s story.