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anime: Kyoukai no Kanata
Jan. 26th, 2014 03:48 pmOh, what a mixed bag this was.
Kuriyama Mirai is part of a cursed clan of spirit warriors who has the ability to control her blood, including turning her blood into a sword. Kanbara Akihito is the son of a spirit warrior and a a demon, and is also immortal, and his two best friends are part of the clan of local spirit warriors who run things. The first time they meet, Mirai tries to kill Akihito because, hey, demon, and that's what spirit warriors do. Except there's the immortality bit and it changes to "hey, demon I can practice on." Akihito isn't overly pleased about this. Eventually they become quasi friends and partners, and Mirai also meets Mitsuki and Hiroomi, the siblings mentioned before, as well as a pair of friendly female demons, not to mention pulls a Kyoko Mogami on her mortal enemy. And, of course, there's there's a larger plot about a powerful demon lurking around and hijinks among the ranks of spirit warriors.
So far, all well and good, right? Then there's the flipside.
Mirai is a girl raised to believe she's cursed, her family is hated by the other clans of spirit warriors. She was raised in isolation, literally spending most of her life in an attic, and had exactly one friend, who is no longer with her. given this, what the show chooses to focus on is how cute and clumsy she is, playing up the moe aspects as much as it can at times. And here's the thing, I've watched several moe series last year, and the moe that's played up here is a lot more than what the actual moe series had. In addition, those series were almost exclusively about the girls and their relationships with each other and their figuring out what they wanted to do with their lives. And while there was some fanservice in them (and i'm well aware of who the target audience for most moe shows is) the fanservice was almost never done for the pleasure of men within the canon, but it is in KnK. The last 3rd of the series makes me think that a lot of that was Mirai playing things up to help create a certain image of herself, but you have to get through a lot of it to get there.
Then there's the guys. In general, as characters, I enjoyed both Akihito and Hiroomi, but the narrative surrounding them is frequently awful. Hiroomi has a huge sister complex and Akihito has a major glasses fetish (Mirai wears glasses). They frequently discuss their fetishes and how Mitsuki and Mirai fit into and feed those fetishes, frequently in detail and in front of them, and bemoan the state of things when the girls aren't behaving in a way that feeds the fetishes. Neither Mitsuki nor Mirai is impressed with this, and Mitsuki is openly disgusted by their behavior and calls them on it (Mirai is openly uncomfortable, but has no idea how to respond to it), but the show itself finds this funny and is very "boys will be boys" about it.
There's also Akihito's mother, and I have no idea how to describe that character.
So, pretty much,when the show focuses on the plot and the action and the characters aside from the fetishes and fanservice, I really liked it, but when it wanted to be funny and/or moe, it was an exercise in patience (maybe even masochism?) to get through it, and I had to force myself to focus on the lovely and fluid animation (and it really is good animation) to get to the good stuff. Thankfully, a lot of the more annoying parts are kicked to the backburner for the last 4 or so episodes, letting the anime it could have been show through. In short, i'm glad I watched all of it and will probably end up watching a second season if there is one, but I can't actually give it a wholehearted recommendation.
Kuriyama Mirai is part of a cursed clan of spirit warriors who has the ability to control her blood, including turning her blood into a sword. Kanbara Akihito is the son of a spirit warrior and a a demon, and is also immortal, and his two best friends are part of the clan of local spirit warriors who run things. The first time they meet, Mirai tries to kill Akihito because, hey, demon, and that's what spirit warriors do. Except there's the immortality bit and it changes to "hey, demon I can practice on." Akihito isn't overly pleased about this. Eventually they become quasi friends and partners, and Mirai also meets Mitsuki and Hiroomi, the siblings mentioned before, as well as a pair of friendly female demons, not to mention pulls a Kyoko Mogami on her mortal enemy. And, of course, there's there's a larger plot about a powerful demon lurking around and hijinks among the ranks of spirit warriors.
So far, all well and good, right? Then there's the flipside.
Mirai is a girl raised to believe she's cursed, her family is hated by the other clans of spirit warriors. She was raised in isolation, literally spending most of her life in an attic, and had exactly one friend, who is no longer with her. given this, what the show chooses to focus on is how cute and clumsy she is, playing up the moe aspects as much as it can at times. And here's the thing, I've watched several moe series last year, and the moe that's played up here is a lot more than what the actual moe series had. In addition, those series were almost exclusively about the girls and their relationships with each other and their figuring out what they wanted to do with their lives. And while there was some fanservice in them (and i'm well aware of who the target audience for most moe shows is) the fanservice was almost never done for the pleasure of men within the canon, but it is in KnK. The last 3rd of the series makes me think that a lot of that was Mirai playing things up to help create a certain image of herself, but you have to get through a lot of it to get there.
Then there's the guys. In general, as characters, I enjoyed both Akihito and Hiroomi, but the narrative surrounding them is frequently awful. Hiroomi has a huge sister complex and Akihito has a major glasses fetish (Mirai wears glasses). They frequently discuss their fetishes and how Mitsuki and Mirai fit into and feed those fetishes, frequently in detail and in front of them, and bemoan the state of things when the girls aren't behaving in a way that feeds the fetishes. Neither Mitsuki nor Mirai is impressed with this, and Mitsuki is openly disgusted by their behavior and calls them on it (Mirai is openly uncomfortable, but has no idea how to respond to it), but the show itself finds this funny and is very "boys will be boys" about it.
There's also Akihito's mother, and I have no idea how to describe that character.
So, pretty much,when the show focuses on the plot and the action and the characters aside from the fetishes and fanservice, I really liked it, but when it wanted to be funny and/or moe, it was an exercise in patience (maybe even masochism?) to get through it, and I had to force myself to focus on the lovely and fluid animation (and it really is good animation) to get to the good stuff. Thankfully, a lot of the more annoying parts are kicked to the backburner for the last 4 or so episodes, letting the anime it could have been show through. In short, i'm glad I watched all of it and will probably end up watching a second season if there is one, but I can't actually give it a wholehearted recommendation.
