A knife salesman in The Way of the Househusband (Gokushufudo) makes his way through a modest suburb. He knows this row is mostly suckers and expects to make a killing. In the first house, the salesman meets a strange man covered in the telltale tattoos of the yakuza and wearing an apron spattered with what looks like human blood. The man leers ominously over his sunglasses, asking if he might “try out” a knife. However, the salesman's fear soon dissolves into confusion as the man skillfully makes him a salmon burger, inviting him to eat. Although the food is "nothing fancy," the first bite whisks the salesman back to the simplicity of his hometown and the earnestness of his former self. At peace, he leaves the knives behind, his scam forgotten.
This scene from the Netflix adaptation of the award-winning manga by Kousuke Oono illustrates the strange power of Tatsu, the former yakuza legend once dubbed “The Immortal Dragon” for brutalizing his way through 10 enemy strongholds in a single night. Disappearing soon after, the Immortal Dragon resurfaces, shocking his foes and friends alike as an apron-clad househusband, his old life behind him.
The Way of the Househusband builds on the "reformed yakuza" comedy subgenre and employs a "controversial" form of static-frame animation to convey the manic energy and deadpan humor that the Immortal Dragon brings to his new domestic life. However, beneath its slapstick comedy and tone, the anime betrays its curious doctrine of serene intensity -- like one of Tatsu’s Instagram-ready dishes -- meticulously prepared and well-suited for the angst of contemporary life.
Wherever he goes, Tatsu commands an aura of fear, respect and most of all, disbelief. This disbelief of minor characters of Gokushufudo serves to voice the audience’s own disbelief at the veracity of Tatsu’s “retirement.” Implicit to the action is the expectation that Tatsu somehow chafes at his new life -- that he secretly resents Miku, his breadwinner wife, and that deep down, he misses what he once was: the Immortal Dragon. This expectation -- gleaned from decades of the formulaic ultraviolence and conventional gender roles common in anime -- is eventually voiced through Masa, his former junior from their gang, the Kunimi Clan.
Masa begs Tatsu to return to the gang, to which Tatsu replies in his characteristic monotone growl -- courtesy of the voice talents of Kenjiro Tsuda -- “You can’t protect what’s special to you with violence.” Later, Tatsu is confronted by an old enemy who holds him at gunpoint at a mall clearance sale; in the course of disarming him, Tatsu slips a pair of pink, fuzzy mittens onto his attacker's empty hands. Like before, the gloves send his attacker back to his childhood, where he remembers his mother’s love and kindness. As the man sobs, Tatsu strides away, warning him and his astonished cronies: “Don’t catch cold.”
Although Tatsu retains some quirks of his old life -- every so often attempting to slice off his fingers for a trivial mistake, and a seriously creepy resting leer -- it becomes clear early in Way of the Househusband that the "Immortal Dragon" is dead. However, it is only much later -- after many confusing run-ins with former friends and foes, exquisite culinary duels and general melodrama -- that it becomes similarly clear that the true spectacle of Gokushufudo is not a yakuza doing housework, but rather the rarity of a person -- an anime protagonist no less -- whose "Way" is peace. In this way, amid the strife and angst of real and fictional life, Gokushufudo evokes an adage from Bruce Lee’s The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, taken from the Zen Buddhist monk, Linji Yixuan:
“Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when you’re tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.”
