Review, Gokushufudou (2021)

By The Monster Army

3 min read

July 16, 2022

Gokushufudou (The Way of the Househusband) tells the story of a retired yakuza legend Tatsu a.k.a Immortal Dragon who at his prime, took out 10 of his rival mob gang’s offices alone empty handedly. Upon retiring, he now has a new profession – a fulltime househusband. The anime follows his day-to-day routine as a househusband and how he’s changed throughout the years from a Yakuza legend to a househusband.

To kick things off, the episode format of this anime is somewhat similar to the Disastrous Life of Saiki Kusuo where each episode is divided into unrelated parts, each episode contains 5 short chapters. Despite the shortness of the chapters, I still found it to be funny and the anime starts in a great note by introducing viewers to the legendary Yakuza member in a really short yet comedic manner.

Speaking of comedy element, the anime is personally, one of my favorite comedy animes so far, the enjoyment and experience was an unforgettable one and one of the main reasons is that the voice actors did an amazing job at voicing each of their characters, especially Tatsu’s (Tsuda Kenjiro). The comedy was projected very nicely through his voice and considering he’s the main character and gets most of the spotlight and most of the comedy revolves around him and his still intact Yakuza instincts.

Now to something quite debatable here, the art and the visual animation of the anime is pretty anti-mainstream as in all honesty, there’s not much animation going on at all – it’s actually some kind of like motion manga. To some viewers, it might be a major flaw, but to other viewers, they’re on the opposite end of the spectrum – and I’m one of them. Personally, it doesn’t really matter as even with this uncommon presentation compared to other animes, it still didn’t hinder the smooth deliverance of the main point of the show – the comedy.

A noticeable flaw that was quite disappointing was that towards the final 2 chapters, the jokes became less intense and less extreme compared to the first 3 chapters. And despite previously stating that I have no problems regarding the how the visuals were presented, it’s still worth noting that there are also drawing inconsistencies on one of the character, Miku.

And since this is a very very light comedy anime, character development isn’t a thing at all here, it’s just one of those animes you brainlessly watch without wasting a single calory thinking yet can still enjoy and experience some gut punching laughters.

A retired Yakuza legend with his underworld instincts and habits still intact who now works as a househusband, a clumsy wife of the Yakuza legend, a sworn brother of the Immortal Dragon who spends his entire life tracking his boss down after his retirement, a crazy house cat – when you combine all these kinds of people into an anime and get a sneak peek into their daily life, it’s definitely one gut punching anime. Great voice actors act as a cherry on top yet sadly, flaws are still present but is a very subjective one.