This type of miscommunication comedy has been around for ages, and the most famous English language example is undoubtedly the 1930s Abbott and Costello skit “Who’s on First?”. Costello asks Abbott to tell him the names of players on a baseball team, but since the players are actually named things like Who, What, and I Don’t Know, the conversation naturally goes off the rails. The ‘90s cartoon Animaniacs also did a similar gag using band names like Who, Yes, and The Band.

Of course, things get even more awkward when Japanese politeness, indirect language, and face-saving behavior come into play. The traditional comedy performance art of rakugo often capitalizes on this aspect of Japanese culture, such as in the “Jugemu” routine, where a child with a very long name falls down a well and the townspeople’s perceived need to say his entire name when passing along the news wastes so much time that he nearly drowns!

These routines are hilarious, but they tend to leave the confused characters right back where they started. Kakushigoto is a long-form show that needs to move its plot forward, so its anti-conversations actually do spur their participants to action (even if that action is a complete misinterpretation of what the other person said). For example, Kakushi manages to accidentally woo three other women in the same episode where he “flirts” with Hime’s teacher, and those characters come back later to support Hime at her class field day. A couple of them even pop up in other episodes to help with tasks like cooking classes or babysitting, all the while still believing that Kakushi is in love with them.

The most important miscommunication in the whole show, however, is the central conflict of Kakushi desperately trying to hide his job as a lewd comedy manga artist from his innocent daughter. Hime’s pretty easy-going and clearly loves him no matter what, so she would most likely be fine with it, but Kakushi’s bumbling behind the scenes actually brings them closer in the long run. The misunderstandings and anti-conversations he gets himself into end up bringing them many friends and valuable experiences that they never would’ve gotten if they were 100% straightforward with each other.