Gugure Kokkuri-san Review
Warning: The following review may contain spoilers. If you wish not to know some events in the story, or simply don't wish to find out what happens in the series, please leave the page, since I don't want to damage a watching experience for you.
With that said, thank you, and onto the review:
A lot of people know that I'm quite a sucker for comedy. It's my favorite genre in the shows I watch and the books I read. There are great comedies out there in the world, such as 2 Broke Girls, Lucky Star, Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty, and random Youtubers. But of course we have the bad ones in a little corner, such as My Bride is a Mermaid, or known as my least favorite anime show that I would love to burn in a fire.
This show was a definite watch when the Fall anime season was upon the horizon. It gave me Kamisama Kiss vibes with spirits, and promised fantastic comedy. If this was the only show that I liked out of the Fall lineup, I would have still watched it in a heartbeat.
Let's just say, I wasn't disappointed.
Despite being based off of a four-panel manga, this show is very enjoyable and laugh-out-loud funny. Every episode at least had me laughing super hard my sides started hurting, and there was super fun plot elements.
I feel like I need an OVA, because I'm already missing this series to death.
Let's go back, back to the beginning. For our story that is.
Story
Kohina is an emotionless elementary school student who claims that she is a doll. She spends her days not doing much, and eats cup noodles every single meal of the day. But one night, she plays the game Kokkuri by herself, and manages to summon the real deal: the fox spirit Kokkuri-san.
At first, Kokkuri-san decides to haunt her, but after noticing her unhealthy eating habits (with cup noodles), he decides to become her guardian and watch over her. This includes cooking, cleaning, and often hiding Kohina's cup noodles.
Along the way, a couple more spirits join the household, and other characters are met along the way. A cat spirit who LOVES dolls as much as Keigo's older sister loves Ikkaku, and a "bully" to Kohina who teases her by putting flowers on her desk every day. With situations such as a spirit whose looks could be deceiving, and gender bending spells, things are about to get wacko!
The story mainly had a slice-of-life feel to it, but since it's based off of a four-panel comic, I don't really think that's a bad thing. At least most episodes have a central focus, such as Kohina finding a Cyclops, Kokkuri-san stressing out about losing hair, and the magical fantastic water of youth. All of these story lines were actually pretty good, and I loved how entertaining they could be.
The latter half of the show often had more episode based stories than the first half did. Though the first half is a bit more random, I still found the comedy to be really enjoyable, and that didn't let me down throughout the series.
Character time!
Along the way, a couple more spirits join the household, and other characters are met along the way. A cat spirit who LOVES dolls as much as Keigo's older sister loves Ikkaku, and a "bully" to Kohina who teases her by putting flowers on her desk every day. With situations such as a spirit whose looks could be deceiving, and gender bending spells, things are about to get wacko!
The story mainly had a slice-of-life feel to it, but since it's based off of a four-panel comic, I don't really think that's a bad thing. At least most episodes have a central focus, such as Kohina finding a Cyclops, Kokkuri-san stressing out about losing hair, and the magical fantastic water of youth. All of these story lines were actually pretty good, and I loved how entertaining they could be.
The latter half of the show often had more episode based stories than the first half did. Though the first half is a bit more random, I still found the comedy to be really enjoyable, and that didn't let me down throughout the series.
Character time!
Characters
There aren't too many characters in this series to keep track of, unlike another fall show I watched called Madan no Ou to Vanadis (Lord Marksman and Vanadis). There's a clear set on which are the main characters. and who are the side.
Let's start with Kohina.
Kohina is an elementary school girl who claims that she is a doll. She lives by herself despite her age, and loves her signature cup noodles. Even despite her claims to be a doll, there are rare moments in the show where her face starts to look more human-like. Though this doesn't happen very often, it still is a nice reminder that Kohina isn't completely robotic.
In her main state, Kohina is emotionless. She rarely cracks any emotion, and her smiles often end up looking like a disaster area. The reason why she claims to be a doll revolves on the fact that she can't make regular emotions like others.
Her obsession with cup noodles doesn't have a explanation. However, she adores them to death. She even has some limited edition varieties hidden in the cupboards. However, Kokkuri-san disapproves for her eating just cup noodles, and often hides them from her. This doesn't stop her from eating them while he's away, hence the GIF above.
Overall, Kohina was a great main character, and was much different from other emotionless characters I've seen before. Most often they don't have personality, yet Kohina does. I found her very interesting, and just fun overall.
Now onto the legendary Kokkuri-san:
Kokkuri-san is a fox spirit who is the first lovely spirit to enter the Ichimatsu household. He has actually known her for a while, occasionally seeing her as she visited the remains of his shrine from time to time. After simply haunting her, he realizes her not so well-being, and decides to help her out.
He is a older spirit, and often gets stressed when his age is joked around. In the first half of episode 9, he becomes so stressed that his hair begins to fall, though it's later confirmed to be shedding season. He often uses dye in his fox fur, in order to make it fluffy.
IT'S SO FLUFFY!
Kokkuri-san often gets annoyed by the other twov spirits in the house, and when the youth water comes into place, he just becomes so stressed that he takes after a day of taking care of the newly young Inugami and Shigaraki.
What's interesting about Kokkuri-san is that in most parts, he plays the overly protective guardian who makes sure our main character is safe. He has a little more depth to him, and can actually be nice and respectable. The funniest moment through-out the series is when a curse turns him into a girl. He worries about being in a girl's form forever, This does vulnerability in Kokkuri-san's character, and is very different in what is expected,
Inugami's turn:
Inugami is a dog spirit, and simply adores Kohina as she was the only one to take care of him-her-it while still a dog. When it died, Inguami was desperate to find Kohina, and has become deeply obsessed her to the point where it becomes completely creepy. Think of multiple ways to try and stay with Kohnina, and dolls. LOTS of them.
Since Inugami doesn't known it's original gender, it has a male and a female form. Hence the it term I've been using these past few paragraphs. It doesn't matter though, since both forms are still deathly obsessed with Kohina. This leads to many arguments with Kokkuri-san.
Besides being really obsessed with Kohina, he can also be a bit obsessed to the point of using two guns if angered. So at least it's not one dimensional. But I would say Inugami is my least favorite out of the spirits. I don't think he gets really a lot of development, and just seems to obsessed with Kohina a bit too much. Too much so that it gets old.
Though I did find it funny when they purposely forgot him until the end of Episode 10 after he ran away in Episode 9, due to the other story-line.
Shigaraki's up now:
I don't condone smoking, but how come it feels a bit more classy in anime? xxxHolic has Yuuko doing it fashionably, and it's shown here a bit since Kokkuri-san sometimes smokes with a pipe. It isn't too common in anime, considering I've seen it in a lot of places where I live. When you go out of a restaurant, it smells like fries. An hour later, it smells like cigarette smoke. But I'm getting off topic here.
Shigaraki is a tanuki spirit who is often very lazy. He is often longing around at home, drinking gallon upon gallon of alcohol in his spirit or human form. Kokkuri-san isn't really fond of him, as they used to be roommates in the past. Think of him as a NEET. His tanuki from used to be quite scary, however he made it cuter so people would really like him. In our world knowledge, that'd be re-tweets and billions of Facebook likes.
Though he mainly has rude behavior, he can show kindness. He visits an orphanage from time to time, that has kids from families he financially ruined. He also decides to kill the Cyclops spirit while Kohina sleeps, and leave him with a scar on his eye so that she wouldn't have to see him kill it.
Self sacrifice. It will always do something right.
Besides having a good side, he also is very interested in females. Mainly with Kokkuri-san and Inugami's female forms. He even kisses the female form of Kokkuri-san anyways, before the male form comes back. Unlike Alice The 19th, but anyways.
I really liked Shigaraki. I found him to be the funniest character in the anime with his tanuki tricks and sometimes covering for Kohina by dressing as her. this joke never got old in the anime at all. Though he may seem like a stereotypical drunk hard and pervert at first, he does show that he can be caring, especially to Kohina.
I wished he turned into his human form in Episode 12 though. That would've been awesome.
Other characters include the cat spirit who has a fetish for cute dolls, Kohina's classmate who "bullies" her, another one of Kohina's classmates who might as well be an alien (and to parody a scene from E.T. with), a tengu spirit who loves little boys, and a ghost who was bound to a maple tree.
In her main state, Kohina is emotionless. She rarely cracks any emotion, and her smiles often end up looking like a disaster area. The reason why she claims to be a doll revolves on the fact that she can't make regular emotions like others.
Her obsession with cup noodles doesn't have a explanation. However, she adores them to death. She even has some limited edition varieties hidden in the cupboards. However, Kokkuri-san disapproves for her eating just cup noodles, and often hides them from her. This doesn't stop her from eating them while he's away, hence the GIF above.
Overall, Kohina was a great main character, and was much different from other emotionless characters I've seen before. Most often they don't have personality, yet Kohina does. I found her very interesting, and just fun overall.
Now onto the legendary Kokkuri-san:
Kokkuri-san is a fox spirit who is the first lovely spirit to enter the Ichimatsu household. He has actually known her for a while, occasionally seeing her as she visited the remains of his shrine from time to time. After simply haunting her, he realizes her not so well-being, and decides to help her out.
He is a older spirit, and often gets stressed when his age is joked around. In the first half of episode 9, he becomes so stressed that his hair begins to fall, though it's later confirmed to be shedding season. He often uses dye in his fox fur, in order to make it fluffy.
IT'S SO FLUFFY!
Kokkuri-san often gets annoyed by the other twov spirits in the house, and when the youth water comes into place, he just becomes so stressed that he takes after a day of taking care of the newly young Inugami and Shigaraki.
What's interesting about Kokkuri-san is that in most parts, he plays the overly protective guardian who makes sure our main character is safe. He has a little more depth to him, and can actually be nice and respectable. The funniest moment through-out the series is when a curse turns him into a girl. He worries about being in a girl's form forever, This does vulnerability in Kokkuri-san's character, and is very different in what is expected,
Inugami's turn:
Since Inugami doesn't known it's original gender, it has a male and a female form. Hence the it term I've been using these past few paragraphs. It doesn't matter though, since both forms are still deathly obsessed with Kohina. This leads to many arguments with Kokkuri-san.
Besides being really obsessed with Kohina, he can also be a bit obsessed to the point of using two guns if angered. So at least it's not one dimensional. But I would say Inugami is my least favorite out of the spirits. I don't think he gets really a lot of development, and just seems to obsessed with Kohina a bit too much. Too much so that it gets old.
Though I did find it funny when they purposely forgot him until the end of Episode 10 after he ran away in Episode 9, due to the other story-line.
Shigaraki's up now:
I don't condone smoking, but how come it feels a bit more classy in anime? xxxHolic has Yuuko doing it fashionably, and it's shown here a bit since Kokkuri-san sometimes smokes with a pipe. It isn't too common in anime, considering I've seen it in a lot of places where I live. When you go out of a restaurant, it smells like fries. An hour later, it smells like cigarette smoke. But I'm getting off topic here.
Shigaraki is a tanuki spirit who is often very lazy. He is often longing around at home, drinking gallon upon gallon of alcohol in his spirit or human form. Kokkuri-san isn't really fond of him, as they used to be roommates in the past. Think of him as a NEET. His tanuki from used to be quite scary, however he made it cuter so people would really like him. In our world knowledge, that'd be re-tweets and billions of Facebook likes.
Though he mainly has rude behavior, he can show kindness. He visits an orphanage from time to time, that has kids from families he financially ruined. He also decides to kill the Cyclops spirit while Kohina sleeps, and leave him with a scar on his eye so that she wouldn't have to see him kill it.
Self sacrifice. It will always do something right.
Besides having a good side, he also is very interested in females. Mainly with Kokkuri-san and Inugami's female forms. He even kisses the female form of Kokkuri-san anyways, before the male form comes back. Unlike Alice The 19th, but anyways.
I really liked Shigaraki. I found him to be the funniest character in the anime with his tanuki tricks and sometimes covering for Kohina by dressing as her. this joke never got old in the anime at all. Though he may seem like a stereotypical drunk hard and pervert at first, he does show that he can be caring, especially to Kohina.
I wished he turned into his human form in Episode 12 though. That would've been awesome.
Other characters include the cat spirit who has a fetish for cute dolls, Kohina's classmate who "bullies" her, another one of Kohina's classmates who might as well be an alien (and to parody a scene from E.T. with), a tengu spirit who loves little boys, and a ghost who was bound to a maple tree.
Animation
The animation for this series was done by TMS Entertainment, who are also known for animating Kamisama Kiss, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Bakugan.
Though Kamisama Kiss had a lot of extravagant backgrounds and character designs, this series has a bit more simplistic style. For me, it works rather well. Though it's not stunning, I still find it at least pretty good.
Normally I almost never have complaints for animation. XD It's a recurring habit I guess.
Sound
The score for this series was composed by Hajime Hyakkoku, who is most known for composing the score for K-On. I don't really remember that series for it's score though, but the songs. Ahh, the songs.
Moving on from K-On, the score for this series was actually pretty good. At some parts, it can be a little bit generic, but there are some pieces that do manage to stand out from the rest.
There were some audio issues during the final episode during a Kohina and Kokkuri-san conversation, but besides that, the performances from all of the actors were really good. Ryo Hirahashi did surprisingly well at Kohina's monotone voice and not showing hardly any emotion. Daisuke Ono's voice entirely surprised me, as he sounded completely like Sebastian. And yes, this is where the fangirls start coming up and screaming.
The opening of this show is legit ear candy. I love how it's able to get the viewers into some sort of dance grove right before the episode begins. And the ending gives me so many feels. THE FEELS!
Highlight of the show include Ryo Hirahashi, Daisuke Ono, Ryoko Shiraishi, Chiwa Saito, Joji Nakata, Yukana, Hisako Kanemoto, Kazutomi Yamamoto, Kosuke Toriumi, and Rina Sato.
There were some audio issues during the final episode during a Kohina and Kokkuri-san conversation, but besides that, the performances from all of the actors were really good. Ryo Hirahashi did surprisingly well at Kohina's monotone voice and not showing hardly any emotion. Daisuke Ono's voice entirely surprised me, as he sounded completely like Sebastian. And yes, this is where the fangirls start coming up and screaming.
The opening of this show is legit ear candy. I love how it's able to get the viewers into some sort of dance grove right before the episode begins. And the ending gives me so many feels. THE FEELS!
Highlight of the show include Ryo Hirahashi, Daisuke Ono, Ryoko Shiraishi, Chiwa Saito, Joji Nakata, Yukana, Hisako Kanemoto, Kazutomi Yamamoto, Kosuke Toriumi, and Rina Sato.
Verdict
I wasn't surprised that I ended up really liking this series. This is a example of how great comedy can work, and an ensemble can be quite good in the end. There is a reason why this is one of my favorite series. It has everything that I love, and doesn't have a lot of problems.
Sometimes, I really wish that most anime could be like this. However, we eventually have to realize that not all of anime is perfect. Some series are just okay, and then some are awful. At least this series didn't let me down.
I recommend this show to anyone in a bad mood, have nothing to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or who someone who like slice of life comedies.
Score: 10/10
Positives:
Great story.
Fun and engaging characters.
Simple, yet nice animation.
Interesting score.
Overall, has a lasting impact with viewer.
Negatives:
None major.
Sometimes, I really wish that most anime could be like this. However, we eventually have to realize that not all of anime is perfect. Some series are just okay, and then some are awful. At least this series didn't let me down.
I recommend this show to anyone in a bad mood, have nothing to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or who someone who like slice of life comedies.
Score: 10/10
Positives:
Great story.
Fun and engaging characters.
Simple, yet nice animation.
Interesting score.
Overall, has a lasting impact with viewer.
Negatives:
None major.
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