Last week’s episode felt like it prioritized worldbuilding instead of moving the story forward (and while worldbuilding is essential, there are also plenty of ways to incorporate worldbuilding naturally in the story without slowing it down too much). So, it seems like this week will be a return to moving the story forward. But did that actually happen? Let’s find out.
The episode begins with Takumi and the kids returning to the Azure Palace. The High Priestess tries to get Takumi to stay longer, but he turns the offer down. Instead, she gives Takumi a box, which he initially thinks will turn him into an old man. As it turns out, it’s just a boxed lunch. Ah, Takumi and remembering mythology from his world. Hopefully, that doesn’t end up being too detrimental for him.
Then Takumi and the kids head out to return to the surface. On their way back to the surface, the kids find crabs…and they found at least two of them, so the title reflects what’s in store for the episode. HURRAH! After the crabs get defeated, the kids find a hole that they lead Takumi to investigate. It turns out that they found themselves in a dungeon when they hit the surface on that side! Due to it being 30 floors, along with a teleportation device on every tenth floor, Takumi decides that (after having the boxed lunch), he and the kids will explore until they find the next teleportation device and then head back to the entrance.
During their time in the dungeon, they find a hidden room behind a wall containing several treasure chests containing seafood and other items helpful with cooking. After taking a break to have some food created with the items found earlier, they rest, then use the stairs within the room to head to the sixth floor. After battling some monsters (quite a good number of them) across two rooms, we see on the screen that the kids sense a chest in the water, which has another of the mermaid bracelets we saw given to Takumi and the kids in a previous episode.
They finish their adventure in the labyrinth and arrive in Bailey! FINALLY! It’s not like this was brought up in Episode 5 at the absolute latest (if not the earliest)! They begin by heading around town, eventually spotting a stand selling scallops. After being given permission to add his own seasoning, Takumi buys three scallops, adding butter and what I initially thought was maple syrup before it was revealed to be soy sauce to the scallops. The kids enjoy it, and the stall owner even asks to try it, and he also enjoys it, causing Takumi to give up some of his butter and soy sauce to allow the stall runner to sell the seasoned scallops.
After they sell out, the stall owner asks about the soy sauce, to which Takumi responds. The group then heads to a blacksmith, with Takumi trying to get the scale Kaiser gave him into a smaller form. But wouldn’t holding it in his inventory do the trick? Or am I overthinking things? After some discussions involving hilarious reaction shots, Takumi decides to make pendants for himself and the kids, with additional gear made out of extra material.
To add the cherry to this episode, Takumi talks to Syl, the former revealing that he knows the kids’ origins. And now comes the bigger question: Who is the biological father of the kids?
This was a much more productive episode, in my opinion! The events actually felt like they had a reason to occur (except for the dungeon before returning to the surface; I feel like that was just a way to kill some time), and the story (at least, what amount of it there is) feels like it actually moved forward! I can’t wait to see the adventures in Bailey!
…man, I need to get used to that as a location name.
Additional posts about A Journey Through Another World: Raising Kids While Adventuring:
Sara Talks Anime 
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