The Show:
Geneon is releasing another magical girl show, but this one has a difference.
In Kamichu, young Yurie Hitotsubashi isn't just a girl who can do
a few spells, she's a god. She's not sure what type of god she is,
or what her actual powers are, or what she's supposed to do as Japan's
youngest god, but she's a god none the less. This is the type of show that Hayao Miyazaki would
make if he ever had the urge; charming and wonderfully engaging.
This light comedy is not only funny and cheerful, but also creative and
unique. Taking place in a world just like ours, only a bit more strange,
this show is a lot of fun to watch.
One day Yurie Hitotsubashi goes to school and confides to her best friend
Mitsue that, well...the previous evening she became a god. When their
classmate Matsuri overhears them, she decides that she'll be Yurie's new
best friend. After all, Marsuri's family owns a temple, and so she
knows about god-type things.
The problem is that Yurie isn't sure what type of god she is.
The three middle school girls go up on the roof during lunch to try determine
what Yurie can actually do, but they're not sure how to go about finding
out. Yurie hears an old wive's tale that says if you reveal your
love to someone when it's windy, your feelings will be reciprocated.
The young god really likes Kenji, a boy who doesn't even know her name,
so she tries with all her might to make it windy. Jumping up in the
air and yelling "Kamichu!" she....makes a small gust of wind a couple of
hundred miles away in the ocean. Feeling defeated, the girls run
off to their next class.
The little gust of wind starts to pick up strength and heads toward
Yurie. By that evening it's a typhoon, and the town's in horrible
danger.
Dealing with accidental typhoons isn't the only problem this little
god has. She still has to go to school, and while she's never been
a great student, this god-thing makes it even more difficult to study.
She gets roped into looking for the missing god of Marsuri's shrine, he's
been gone three months and no one's sure where his is, and she also has
to deal with the Martians when they land in the capital as well as handle
crooked politicians. Even after all of this, poor Yurie, the youngest
god in Japan, doesn't know what type of god she is.
This is a great show, and one of the best things about it is that it
takes place in a world that is just a little different from the real world.
There are cars and busses and boats, and people still have to go to work
and earn a living, but there odd little differences. This is a place
where some sharks go fishing in their kimonos and cats gather in fields
to drink and carouse. Of course, you have to be a god to see that,
but that doesn't mean it's not happening. Also, there are a lot of
gods, as many gods as there are things in the universe, but a lot of them
aren't very useful, and some of them are harmful like the god of poverty.
The show has just the right touch of the surreal to make it interesting
(and often humorous) but the main focus are on the problems poor Yurie
has to deal with. God or not, she still has to study and do her chores.
Then there's Kenji. Will he ever notice her?
The creators were obviously attempting to mimic Miyazaki's style and
tone for this series, and they succeeded wonderfully. The backgrounds
are filled with tiny details too, showing smaller gods going about their
daily duties and air spirits floating in the sky. Yurie even manages
to fly for a bit in the first episode. From the pace of the show
and personalities of the main character to the high quality animation,
this feels a lot like a Miyazaki work, and that's about the highest praise
I can give any anime show.
The DVD:
Audio:
This disc has a stereo soundtrack in the original Japanese as well as
an English dub, also in stereo. I alternated tracks, as I usually
do, and found that both tracks were very good. The Japanese voices
seemed to fit the characters a little bit better, but the English cast
did a very good job matching the dialog to the mouth movements and putting
emotion into their performances. Being a recent show, there audio
quality was very good, with distortion, dropouts, and other defects being
nonexistent.
Video:
The widescreen anamorphic image was very nice. There was
a wide range of colors used and they were all reproduced very well.
The lines were tight and the image clear. On the digital front, there
weren't any issues worth noting. Even aliasing, something that plagues
animation, was absent. A very nice looking show.
Extras:
The only extra included with this disc is an art gallery of images from
the Japanese release.
Final Thoughts:
Though there's not constant action or a laugh with every line, this
is one of the better shows I've seen this year. Like the work of
Hayao Miyazaki, this show is unique and imaginative and is filled with
charm and humor. Yurie is a wonderful character, a young god who
doesn't know what she is expected to do, and the supporting cast is also
entertaining. The world that is revealed in this show is so much
like our own, but so much different, a fun and endearing place. This
is a show that anime fans should try to search out. Highly recommended.
Buy: