The Show:
In the third volume of Kamichu!, Japan's youngest god encounters
some more problems that only a god could have. First she has to move
a battleship that was sunk in WWII, and then attend Godcon, a convention for deities, while studying
for midterms. That's not to mention getting wrangled into running for student
council president. An inventive and cute program, this show is just
a lot of fun. It's the type of show that Hayao Miyazaki would make if he
ever produced for the small screen; charming and wonderfully engaging.
This is the perfect show to screen for someone who claims to hate anime.
Series background:
One day Yurie Hitotsubashi goes to school and confides to her best friend
Mitsue that, well...the previous evening she became a god. She's
not sure what type of god she is, or what powers or abilities she has,
but she's definitely a god. When their classmate Matsuri overhears
them, she decides that she'll be Yurie's new best friend. After all,
Matsuri's family owns a temple, and so she knows about god-type things.
Even though she's a god, and can see the other gods that inhabit the
world, Yuri still thinks and feels like a school girl. She has a
big crush on a cute guy in her class, Kenji, but he doesn't even know her
name. All he's interested in doing calligraphy, and even with divine
powers, though she's not really sure what powers she has, Yuri can't get
him interested in her.
This volume:
The disc starts off with a touching story about an old man who served
in the Japanese Navy during WWII. He was on the battleship Yamato,
but was wounded and left on land just before the ship sank. He has fond
memories of his time on the ship, and feels a little guilty that he wasn't
on her when she sunk.
As luck would have it, Yurie gets a message from the Yamato himself.
He's been at the bottom of the ocean for 50 years and really wants to go
back to his home port, in spirit at least. In order for Yurie to
grant his wish, she has to get to know the battleship and what he was like.
Though she learns a lot from books, talking to the old man brings makes
her appreciate what type of ship the Yamato really is. This is a
sweet story that had just the right amount of humor to keep it from getting
too sappy.
"Looking back, that would be the beginning of a campaign that would
go down in school history as the first one between a student... and a god."
-Mistsue
Speaking of humor, the next episode is full of comedy. When it
is time for student council elections, Matsuri thinks that Yurie should
run for president. The young god doesn't want to, but when she discovers
that the only other person running wants to do away with most of the school
clubs, she throws her hat into the ring.
There are a lot of funny scenes in this episode, from the way that Yurie's
opponent reacts to the news that he has to run against a god to Matsuri's
plans for the campaign, this is an enjoyable and light hearted episode.
The last scene where we find out what happens to the school after the election
had me laughing out loud.
Matsuri's younger sister, Miko, runs away in the next program, and Yurie
has to help locate her. Miko's not alone though, Shokichi has gone
with her. This just adds to the problem, since the children's parents
jump to conclusions and think that they elementary school kids have run
off to elope.
The volume wraps up with another cute episode. Every year there
is a god convention in the city of Izumo, Godcon. The gathering lasts
an entire month, and Yurie has to transfer to a school in Izumo so she
won't fall behind in her studies. The students at her new school
treat her too formally, and she doesn't know how to break the ice.
Between attending the god convention every evening and school every day,
she finds it hard to work in the time to study from her midterms.
It's a fairly miserable month for the young god, but she learns something
important.
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 a little on the soft side but the image was 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:
While the second volume dropped a bit in quality, the series shoots
back up with these four episodes. A really fun and entertaining show,
this program will appeal to both young and old viewers whether they are
anime fans or not. The only thing wrong with it is that it's short;
there's only one more volume to go. Highly Recommended.
Buy: