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Private Notes
Watashi stops by a pet shop on the way home. He spots a kappa on display in the window and buys it, seemingly on impulse. But not unprepared, Watashi refers to his book on raising kappa wherein he quickly learns his first lesson regarding the diet of a kappa.
Today, Watashi attempts to coax Kaatan, his kappa, from his kennel with a toy. After a short time, he decides to teach Kaatan some resistance exercises, but not without consequences!
Kaatan has been behaving mischievously! Watashi does the only thing he knows how to do and refers to his book on raising kappa. Hmm, training a kappa.. not like a dog... toothpicks... interesting...
The behaviour training appears to be going well, however as Watashi soon realises there is still much work to do! Although... perhaps teaching a kappa to shake hands isn't an absolute necessity?
Time for potty training! After trying to dig holes in the tatami mats and generally creating a mess of the apartment, Watashi decides to take to this important training task. However, as seems to be the recurring case, it's not as easy as he at first imagines.
Watashi takes Kaatan back to visit the pet store. While there they see a long-unsold kappa with a wounded shell, causing Watashi to ponder over why he chose the particular creature he did.
Watashi has a visitor, but Kaatan is not impressed! She brings her Kappa, Kyuu-chan, with her with which Kaatan is impressed even less! What starts as a bit of a tussle escalates into a violent exchange!
Sakamoto-san, Watashi's friend, is still visiting. They are getting along fine, and Kyuu-chan is having plenty of fun, but just leave it up to Kaatan to show him up! Punishment is in order... but maybe things will turn up?
Potty training continues. Watashi and Kaatan go for a mostly uneventful walk through the park. Watashi becomes extremely self-righteous about dog owners not cleaning up after their pets, however he is not without mistakes of his own!
It's a walk in the park again (a different one, due to the problems faced last time). Kaatan meets some other kappa and has a ball (game). The fun and games can't last forever, though. Enter Hercules.
In this episode we learn about Hercules, the intimidating 10-year-old kappa (30 in human years) who hangs around a park bench. Possibly because he's tied up there. He scares kids, grown-ups and fellow kappa alike.
Today we find out a little more about kappa and the mythology surrounding them. Remember: be careful around kappa, they might have their eyes on your spirit ball. With this in mind, though, we won't recommend taking everything you hear in this episode as fact!
Continuing from the previous episode, and clearing up some confusion and misinformation bestowed upon Watashi, we learn a little more about kappa and their habits. Thanks for the reliable information, Sakamoto-san!
Another kappa mystery unravelled! Watashi discovers the truth about Hercules at last, could it be that Kaatan was right all along in not being afraid of him? Or perhaps he really does crush children's skulls??
Watashi behaves extremely irresponsibly in this episode by falling asleep on a park bench and leaving Kaatan unattended. After wondering off by himself and a brief altercation with a dog, Chii (formerly Hercules) saves the day.
Swimming lessons. Or maybe these are drowning lessons, it appears so! You may have thought that swimming comes naturally to kappa, but as usual, Kaatan is completely hopeless when it comes to learning something new.
Finally Kaatan is taking to water and appears to quite enjoy the idea of swimming. Unfortunately, kappa aren't allowed into the local swimming pool, so the group head back down to the river. It can bit a little dangerous, but.. oh no, where's Kakkun!?
Watashi refers to the Swimming Volume of the How to Raise a Kappa series of books. Join us to discover the slightly disturbing secrets of how to get a kappa to swim successfully!
More swimming lessons for Kaatan. This time Watashi goes down to the river with Mr Tadokoro, a local businessman with an unfortunate past. Kaatan does well, however Mr Tasokoro's kappa, Maa, does not have such a good time.
Finally it's Sunday and everyone heads down to the ocean! Fortunately Sakamoto-san is there to advise everyone that kappa need to wear sunblock and also to peddle her goods, as usual!
More fun down at the beach. Kaatan and friends play the popular Japanese beach game suikawari, which involves locating and smashing open a watermelon while blindfolded. Uh-oh, a shark!
It seems that Kaatan has "summer lethargy". Watashi takes the blame for Kaatan's fever as he neglected to apply sunblock when they went to the beach earlier. When the fever doesn't go down, Watashi takes Kaatan to the hospital on Sakamoto's advice.
Watashi and Kaatan are going for a walk when they spot Kakkun walking alone. It turns out that he's been sent on an errand but is under surveillance in case something goes wrong.
Following the success of Kakkun's outing, it has become a mini-craze amongst kappa owners to send their kappa on errands (under close surveillance, of course). Surprisingly, for once, Kaatan appears to do better than the others, however that may still not be quite enough...
Chii seems to have a penchant for music - or at least for musical instruments! There's a trumpet in the music store window that he has his eye on, and generous Kakkun seems to want to help him buy it with the money he's been earning running errands... but isn't 18,000 yen a little steep for him?
There's a crisis at home and Watashi has to head straight back to the remote area by train.
