Konohana Kitan (このはな綺譚)

It's been a while since I saw an anime that hides its gold so deep. First 3 episodes of Konohana Kitan feel like a patience challenge. Reminds me of some Buddhist stories where a monk would let the aspiring student stand outside the temple for a couple weeks in the cold and heavy rain in order to test his resolve. Except here you have to endure the first 3 episodes that are guaranteed to push a lot of people away. Especially if you have something else to do. Characters just kinda fuss about with no plot and acting terribly generic. It gives every possible sign this is going to be completely forgetable. The first 3 episodes are trying to tell you it's a group of cute fox girls working at an inn for the gods. Just one more excuse to look at cute characters, please move on. Well, too bad, Ms. Tsubaki, I stood there and you had to let me in.

Then it gets good. The fourth episode really gives you the opportunity to look under the sweetness of these charming foxes. And if you sit there and connect some dots at leisure, it gets really interesting. So, these fantastic creatures are pretty much playing around with human emotions. They live so long that to them, human lives feel like a short dream, and they see no problem deluding humans because they have a hard time even seeing the difference. It makes sense. They must feel like it's OK to give people a nice dream instead of reality, after all, a human lasts as long as a soap bubble to them. Of course this idea of fantasy as a tool is what iyashikei itself is about in many ways.

Each episode we get a person in need to escape reality. An abandoned child, an workaholic, a suicidal. All darkness of reality must be destroyed. There's a very funny and profoundly revealing moment in the 8th episode where Yuzu meets a compulsive liar who ends up isolated from people. She lies because she finds life crushingly insipid. Yuzu, being a fox, can't understand what she's talking about, so to cheer the liar up she responds that her fox life is actually great! I had to pause right there and give a hollow laugh. There's such a gap between these creatures and humans it's almost a cruelty to be able to converse with them. It's like talking to a demi-god able to do all these amazing things and being close to one makes you more aware of your shortcomings. The story ends with the girl disappearing and going back to her own world. Her problems, to Yuzu, was nothing but a short walk on the beach. The second part of the episode deals with people who don't want to go back to reality. Again, hard not to make a connection of yourself watching Konohana.

Like I said, all darkness must be destroyed and this includes the complete destruction of my second favorite character (first being Sakura of course), Okiku. See, Okiku is a curse doll but she doesn't look like one. She looks pretty much like an Ichimatsu doll with the beautiful red kimono and the long black hair. I really like those dolls and here there is one, but not for long. They find her look too bleak and decide to mutilate her into a maid with silly purple hair. I suppose it could be worse. Then Sakura spent a good chunk of her time making Okiku fear for her life. Why is it that Yuzu doesn't pay more attention to this particular situation? That wasn't fair.

Everything I said is not really on the surface of the show but if you think too much about these I think you'll end up seeing it, too. Still, very emotional, cute stories all around with kindhearted characters and bittersweet endings. I feel like the manga must be a lot more interesting because it can deal with creepy cute effects of a gods' inn. It did show up here and there in the anime and it's probably coming from the manga. Also the author herself escapes to her own fantasy all the time. She's everywhere, wearing a fox mask. She knows what's up. She really does.

Hoozuki no Reitetsu (鬼灯の冷徹)

 

It's possible you might have talked to someone like Ms. Eguchi before. A person who has two or three very specific interests and is very knowledgeable about them. You might know a thing or two about those things as well, but not at all like that person. You end up doing all the listening. She goes on talking about the things she likes and it might be a little hermetic at first, you might even consider coming up with an excuse to leave, but soon you get caught up in her web and things get so interesting you end up completely immersed in it. Then, when you realize it, hours have passed and you were having a great time listening to that person, even though you didn't think much of it at first.

That's how I feel about Ms. Eguchi's title, Hoozuki no Reitetsu. She has a fascination for ink wash and traditional Chinese and Japanese painting, especially landscapes. But that's just the beginning, because she also knows a lot about Chinese and Japanese mythology and folklore, particularly things related to the other worlds. Hells and Heavens. Naturally she knows her Buddhism as well. When talking about these fantastic matters, she organizes everything around the type of men she likes. You can see this is going to get very interesting. Ms. Eguchi is a fascinating person, but you have to give her time to really enjoy where she's going.

Enter her main character, Hoozuki. He's a demon working in Hell for none other than Great King Enma, the ruler and supreme judge of the underworld. Hoozuki is handsome, quiet, self-contained, strong, level-headed, master of several arts, from gardening to cooking and medicine. He's reliant, chaste, organized, focused and can hold his liquor. Ms. Eguchi loves to talk about how cool he is and of course we agree, Hoozuki is a pretty amazing demon, he's awesome.

Ms. Eguchi is also very interested in language and her characters talk in a very literary manner. They don't talk in an old style, in fact their dialogues are very modern, contemporary business-like style, but they tend to use literary words, usually with very clear Chinese roots that nobody else uses. She'll make lots of jokes about it, too, so you'll have to watch it more than once… maybe thrice to really get them all.

She loves to think about folklore heroes and mythological creatures as entities who screwed up at some point and she loves to see their ugly side. It's hard to tell if she likes to drag those characters through the mud for its own sake, or if she does it so Hoozuki can fix them up, making him ever cooler and more attractive in the process. Probably a little bit of both. I'm not complaining, it's actually quite entertaining.

As you can imagine by what I've said so far, Ms. Eguchi's humor is rather peculiar and it doesn't always work outside her own head, but the atmosphere and the world where the jokes happen are so interesting you don't even mind. Also, her characters' designs are adorable when it needs to be and grotesque when it needs to be, everything works very well. They look good, endearing and cute. Not many people can draw traditional clothing like she does. Quick but elegant. Her art really stands out, though the anime may not convey it at all times.

Hoozuki no Reitetsu is a fascinating work and I'm really happy to find out she still has lots of ideas she wants to express. Soon after finishing Hoozuki, she began another title, Dekin no Mogura. Let's hope it's as good as this one.

Kaidan Restaurant (怪談レストラン)

 

Kaidan Restaurant is based on a series of horror short story books collection for children that ran from the mid 90s to 2010, when the last book got released, reaching 50 volumes. MAL says it's picture books but it's actually short story collections, each story goes for about 10 to 12 pages and every other story has an illustration to go along with it. I've personally read about 10 or so of these books and I feel like the anime does a very good job translating the material to animation.

The books and the anime are actually a sort of modern take on several classic horror, folktale stories and more modern urban legends. Most have Japanese sources but there are a good number of European stories as well. If you have any interest in Japanese literature, especially related to the weird, folk tales and horror, then you'll recognize a lot of these. Some of the stories are based on sources as old as the Konjaku Monogatarishu and Ugetsu Monogatari compilations. Some are based on very modern urban legends related to technology, like being able to talk to the dead through a cell phone, creatures from the Beyond being able to use TV signals to cross dimensions, etc.

Although it's a show written for children, you would be surprised how it doesn't shun away from a lot of things a show like this in the West would do. Children actually die in tragic ways here. This is not a spoiler, just a warning. It's also very well written, setting a good precedent; it's not because it's for children that it needs to be lazy, uninteresting and avoid exploring themes like death, loss, pain, tragedy and the like. Just remember, it is a show for kids first, so it won't wallow in depressing themes, but it uses well to tell the stories it wants to tell. It explores all these things very well and in a very Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai-ish way. That's how it usually starts; the 3 main characters, Shou, Ako and Reiko get together, usually after seeing something weird. Shou remembers a story relating to that event and tells it to the other characters. Sometimes the characters themselves go investigate whatever weird thing that happened in their town or in their school. Most episodes are divided into 3 stories, sometimes 2 and a couple of episodes have a single story.

This show was extremely popular in Japan in its demographic and it's easy to see why. For adults however, it might require a little bit of persistence. Some stories are rather mild and an episode here and there can be a little dull, but if you keep going, there are very good tales to go through, some quite tragic and emotionally charged. Each story is self contained so you can skip the ones you don't like, just make sure to watch the last episode. It's a very nice one and it gives some development to one of the main characters.

Each episode gets a little intro by Garcon, the ghost who runs the Kaidan Restaurant. In the books he serves the same purpose, welcoming  the main character of each story as he or she enters the restaurant to tell or be told a horror story. Here however, he just introduces the stories with the help of other supernatural creatures, but they happen in other places. He's also played by Mr. Hirata Hiroaki, one of the most charming male voices in the industry today.

Going with this show's premise of introducing each story as dishes, I think this anime is a good palate cleanser. If you watched something very somber or depressing, or if you just watched something too cute and excessively sweet or silly, then I think you'll enjoy going through this, especially if you're into horror. There's also a movie out there but what this really deserves is a second season. All in all, it's a very satisfying show to go through.

Lovely★Complex (ラブ★コン )

If you have been watching anime for a long time and are willing to explore several genres, Lovely Complex will end up crossing your path sooner or later. It's one of the big shoujo romantic comedies out there and a staple of its kind. It doesn't try to do anything new, instead it focuses on being a safe show that manages to pull all the regular tropes in a very entertaining manner. The story follows the highschool years of Risa and Ootani as their relationship evolves from friendship to romance.

Risa is the main character and it's mainly through her eyes we'll be following the story. She's way taller than her love interest Ootani and that's one of the main elements for the comedy part to happen, usually slapstick and hilarious facial expressions. Their height difference is a source of insecurity from both parties and a hindrance they have to overcome to be together. It also makes them a very memorable couple and part why people still remember this show fondly after all these years.

Their road to romance is what you would expect of a shoujo romantic comedy. Filled with misunderstandings, melodramatic moments and all sorts of badly handled emotions by Ootani and Risa that makes them getting together a lot more tempestuous and difficult than it should be, but that's a romcom anime for you. I feel like this is a very good show for people interested in having a clear picture of how a romantic comedy is put together. Being upfront about the tropes really works in this show's favor.

Expect them all: a dense character that can't take a hint. Characters witnessing an innocent scene and assuming it's something else, characters being dropped in the plot only as a hindrance for the pairing of the main couple to happen, characters not expressing their feelings or expressing them in confusing ways, etc.

Now, Lovely Complex does get repetitive here and there and if you're just watching to see the couple getting together in the end it might bother you it's taking so long, but if you're interested in how the author reworks the same tropes in different flavors and how the story progresses using the same basic conflict, then you'll have a lot of fun. It's a one-on-one romcom after all. I feel like Lovely Complex is a very good standart to the genre and after you watch it you'll have a good idea of the elements you don't like and the stuff you do want to see more of it.

夜は猫といっしょ (Yoru wa Neko to Issho)

There's a fair amount of manga about cats out there and in 2020 an artist going by the handle Kyuryu Z on Twitter began publishing his own observations and interactions with his pet cat named Kyuruga (a pun on the fact his sister's mobile phone tried to read the cat like a QR Code). Yoru wa Neko to Issho have since amassed over 700k followers on Twitter. Kadokawa picked it up for publication (the third volume came out in April 2022) and an anime adaptation was announced as well for the season of Summer 2022.

Unlike something like Ojisama to Neko that focus on the emotional attachment between pet and owner or Chi's Sweet Home that uses anthropomorphic cats for comedy, this title is centered around careful observation of cat behavior. If you ever owned a cat, most pages here will depict things very familiar to you. The fascination cats have for boxes, how they love to get in the way when you're staring at your screen monitor, pushing things off tables and so on. The author is very careful in his observations and the interest and comedy contained here flow in a very natural, peaceful, non-scripted manner. The author is obviously not forcing the jokes to happen and any funny moment comes from pure cat observation. It's pretty much a diary relating funny and amusing things cats do and how it can brighten someone's day. Kyuruga the cat is the main and only star here, at least for now. The other two characters, Fuuta and his sister are just there to observe and play with the pet and the rest of their lives are not explored in any capacity. It's all about the pet cat.

It's a SOL for sure and the art is rather unique. Doesn't seem like Kyuryu Z had any pretentions with his manga, it just grew organically and the art shows his concern to depict cat behavior and movement in an accurate manner but also as fast as possible. I'm really curious how the anime adaptation is going to look like.

I highly recommend you check it out if you enjoy cats (it will be an endless source of 'my cat does that too!' moments) and also because you can actually read all this interesting stuff for free! The author keeps a blog with all the stories archived. I spent a lazy afternoon going through every story and it was an afternoon decently spent. Head to his Twitter, you can find all the links from there.