Neko Zamurai (season 2) - First Impressions, Eps 1 & 2

To quickly recap the main story for those who are not familiar with the drama, Kyutaro Madarame (Kazuki Kitamura) is a masterless samurai. He was hired to assassinate one of the boss's cat, Tamanojyo. However, Kyutaro has fallen for the cat. So, he takes Tama under his wing.

 

Episode 1 

Kyutaro leaves his family again and moves back to Edo to continue to find a job. Of course, he takes Tama with him for company.  He meets the landlady and she lays down the rules of her place: no cats are allowed. She has a history of one of her tenants was hoarding stray cats in the room. Kyutaro has to be careful not to get kicked out and let her find out about Tama. However, he gets into more trouble when he finds stray cats hanging out in his backyard.

Another character returning to the show is Oshichi (Kaori Takahashi), she's a cat expert and owns a cat shop. Kyutaro usually goes to her to get advice on how to take care Tama. She advices him to take care of the stray cats, since now they are part of his family. Even though he doesn't want to, he ends up buying a large jar of cat food from her. 

Eventually, the land lady finds out about the stray cats and had them removed from his room. She won't hold him for responsible, since these cats just wondered into his room on their own. She gave the them away to someone who cares for abandoned cats.  Luckily, she doesn't find out about Tama and they go back to their quite life.

Episode 2

Finally, Kyutaro was able to find job as a Kenjutsu instructor to a father's son, Kantaro. He makes a really fearsome face, so that he could look tough and respectable. But the son turns out to be only a child. As soon as he saw Kyutaro, he immediately starts crying and runs away because Kyutaro looks like a demon. Kyutaro is back to being unemployed again.

While strolling in the streets, he gets called on by young man named Aizaki. He seems to know Kyutaro, but Kyutaro has no idea who he is. Aizaki reminds him that he is the Old Man Gi, from the previous season, he was an old man at that time. But now he has reinvented himself,  from being an artist to becoming an actor. His his whole appearance changed, all thanks to the amazing advances of Edo period plastic surgery. (eeh!)

Kyutaro almost considers trying out plastic surgery. Everyone makes fun of him for having a scary face and everyone fears him with just one look. The next day he sees a old lady go into the clinic and few seconds later come out as a young woman. However, a stampede of Aizaki's fan girls runs toward him and he loses Tama, which he went inside of the clinic. He chases after him and he comes out as a old.   

First Impressions: I did saw the Neko Zamurai movie, which follows the exact same set up as season one, and they added new characters. I thought that it nicely wrapped up the story and it did put a good closure to Kyutaro's backstory. I didn't expect there will be any more to this simple story. But season 2 is here! I don't mind it because I already love this series.

What I love about this show is seeing the growing relationship between a tsundare samurai and a cat.  It's a hilarious and charming.  I love Kitamura's portrayal as Kyutaro. The character doesn't say much, he talk mostly through his inner monologue, but through body language and facial expression says it all.  

I'm not sure what kind of new conflict they are going to face in this season. It looks like it will have some absurd supernatural things going on. Other than that, it's an easy 20 min drama to watch, it puts me into a good mood and I know I'm going to enjoy it.       

As a side note, if you're having trouble finding subs, I recently find out that dramatv.co has all of the subs for the first season.