Hyakushou Kizoku 3rd Season Episode 4
The Ballad of the Blighted Spud: Season 3, Episode 4 Synopsis Plot Teaser: The Fungus Among Us The tranquil rhythm of Hokkaido farming life is shattered by the silent invasion of a microscopic enemy.
This episode, The Scourge of the Blighted Tuber, thrusts the Arakawa farm into a desperate, no-holds-barred war against late-stage potato blight.
With the crucial harvest only weeks away, the usually stoic Father declares the battle lost before it even begins, prompting a frantic, all-night campaign led by the hapless Arakawa-san.
The conflict isn't just chemical versus organic; it's a brutal family stand-off against the brutal, financial reality of a multi-ton crop failure.
Can the famed Peasant Noble family repel the relentless fungal assault, or will their entire yearly income dissolve into a mushy, black-and-smelling catastrophe? Heart of the Conflict The crisis begins not with a bang, but with a horrifying silence in the middle of the largest Russet potato field.
Arakawa-san, venturing out for a routine irrigation check, discovers tell-tale black, oil-stained lesions on the leaves and stems the terrifying signature of Phytophthora infestans, or potato blight.
This aggressive fungus, capable of wiping out an entire field in days, is spreading from the low-lying swampy patch near the forest line.
The heart of the conflict is a terrifyingly short deadline: The crop must be salvaged and isolated within 48 hours before the spores reach the vulnerable tubers underground, rendering hundreds of thousands of yen worth of potatoes utterly worthless.
The debate is vicious: the Father insists on burning the infected sections immediately to contain it, even at a massive loss, while Arakawa-san desperately argues for an untested, large-scale application of a new, prohibitively expensive fungicide, risking financial ruin if the gamble fails.
This is not just farming; it is economic Russian roulette played with heavy machinery and volatile chemicals.
Important Characters, Roles, and Motivations 1.
Arakawa-san (The Protagonist) Role: The Reluctant Warrior and Field General.
She is the executor of all physical labor and the source of emotional panic.
Motivation: Primarily, self-preservation and the avoidance of her Father's wrath and the resulting back-breaking work of digging up only the healthy plants.
Her secondary motivation is pride; she recently invested in a state-of-the-art sprayer attachment and needs to prove its worth.
2.
The Father (The Peasant Noble/Patriarch) Role: The Cold Strategist and Judge of the Land.
He dictates the timing, method, and acceptable loss margin.
Motivation: The core directive of the Peasant Noble: Efficiency and Minimum Waste.
He views the blight as a moral failure of the land management, not a natural disaster.
His motivation is proving that his decades of innate, brutal knowledge supersede Arakawa-san's reliance on modern, expensive solutions.
3.
The Mother (The Logistics Commander) Role: The Pragmatic Voice of Reason and Resource Manager.
She controls the farm's finite budget and the allocation of machinery.
Motivation: Avoiding unnecessary debt and ensuring the family eats.
She is motivated by the immediate need to acquire the expensive fungicide without incurring the Father's ire and simultaneously preparing enough curry to fuel the marathon spraying operation.
4.
Sasaki-san (The Neighbor) Role: The Unintentional Antagonist and Competitive Foil.
He only appears briefly but serves to amplify the Arakawa family's stress.
Motivation: He's simply motivated by farming success and wants to casually brag about his own early-season blight prevention measures, completely unaware of the agricultural apocalypse unfolding a quarter-mile away.
Sequence of Important Scenes 1.
The Silent Menace (Discovery) The episode opens with Arakawa-san, basking in the rare Hokkaido sun, feeling smug about the perfect potato canopy.
This peace is abruptly destroyed when she notices a single, blackened stem.
The camera focuses in horrifying detail on the oospore clusters.
She tries to use a pair of garden shears for a surgical removal, but the Father’s immediate, deafening bellow stops her.
He appears silently on the horizon, having smelled the decay, and declares the low section of the field about 15% of the crop irredeemably lost.
2.
The Council of War and Chemical Reckoning (The Debate) The family retreats to the kitchen, where a makeshift battlefield map (drawn on a sticky note) is laid out.
The Father argues for a controlled burn/deep tilling, accepting the 15% loss to save the remaining 85%.
Arakawa-san, fueled by sheer economic terror, pulls out receipts for the new, high-tech sprayer and argues, We bought the tools for this! We fight for the entire 100%! The Mother, after a tense five minutes of silence, agrees only if the fungicide is acquired cash-only from the distant, expensive co-op branch, triggering an immediate, high-speed dash across Hokkaido in the rickety pickup truck.
3.
The Nocturnal Siege (The Action Sequence) The core scene is a grueling, cinematic sequence set entirely at night, illuminated only by the tractor's high beams.
Arakawa-san, encased in a poorly fitted protective suit (which keeps getting snagged), is tasked with driving the heavy tractor and meticulously operating the massive fungicide sprayer.
The Father stands at the edge of the field, smoking silently, acting as a human GPS, barking corrections in millimeter increments.
The tension is focused on a clogged sprayer nozzle, forcing Arakawa-san to repeatedly jump off the running tractor, risking a dangerous exposure to the chemicals, as the Father simply notes, The timer is running.
4.
Sasaki-san’s Unintentional Taunt (The Stress Test) Just as the Arakawa family is nearing exhaustion at 3 AM, Sasaki-san drives by on his way home from a community meeting.
He stops, genuinely friendly, to ask about the late-night activity.
Arakawa-san, still out here? My field’s been tucked in for hours! A little bit of copper sulfate preventative works wonders, doesn’t it? His innocent mention of his perfect, already-protected field sends Arakawa-san into a silent, homicidal rage, perfectly encapsulated by a close-up of her sweat-streaked, goggled face.
5.
The Morning After (Resolution) As the sun rises, the entire 100% of the potato field is dusted in the chalky white fungicide.
Arakawa-san collapses into the Mother’s pickup truck, exhausted but victorious.
The blight’s spread is visibly halted; the crisis is averted.
The Story's End and The Twist The story ends with a moment of silent, grudging victory.
The Father, surveying the treated field, offers his highest possible compliment: a grunt that sounds suspiciously like Hmph.
Passable.
The Mother calculates the cost of the fungicide and the fuel, noting that the farm has officially broken even for the quarter a minor miracle.
The Dramatic Twist: As Arakawa-san begins driving the fungicide tractor back to the shed, the machine emits a sharp, metallic CRACK.
A close-up shot reveals that the intense, high-pressure, all-night spraying operation combined with Arakawa-san’s aggressive turning has severely cracked the main axle housing of the decade-old, irreplaceable farm tractor.
The victory of saving the potato crop is instantly nullified.
