Anime Spotlight: Kamisama Dolls

Man, right as soon as I get back to an isolated mountain town, I deal with a show about an ancient village nestled within the mountains.  That cannot possibly be a good omen.  I am also using this opportunity to test out a few new things!  Stay tuned.

Kamisama Dolls

Episodes: 13

Originally aired: 18 June 2011 – 28 September 2011

Producer: Brain’s Base

Director: Kishi Seiji

Genres: Action, Drama, Supernatural, Seinen

Rating: R – 17+ (violence and profanity)

Unlicensed; legally streaming on Crunchyroll

Synopsis:

Kuga Kyouhei is a college student who moved to Tokyo to escape the village he was born in and events that happened during his past.  One night, while out at a party with his friends from college, including his old neighbor Shiba, the two discover a mutilated body.  It turns out that it was left by Aki, a former friend from the village who had been imprisoned for murdering many in cold blood.   Along comes Utao, Kyouhei’s sister and a Seki (one who controls a Kakashi, or a ‘doll’ that is considered a god), to aid in the hunt for Aki, the loose cannon Seki who is out to drag Kyouhei back into his painful past.

Review:

I am going to be upfront about this right from the get-go: Kamisama Dolls is not a good show.  It is not an exceedingly bad show, either, but it is simply mediocre.  Which is a major disappointment, due to the interesting set-up and background details provided, but a show cannot stand on those merits alone.

The premise of Kamisama Dolls is certainly an intriguing one, setting it up as an urban horror-thriller with mech battles thrown in there.  The development of this premise, however, leaves a lot to be desired.  Much of the earlier episodes tend to meander about without developing much of a plot, focusing mostly around hunting Aki, training Utao, Hibino fanservice, and antics.  The show is not episodic during these episodes, as some of the antics add to the plot when it finally decides to stop taking the scenic route, but it takes awhile to get rolling.  The middle of series is arguably the better part of it, focusing on the development of Kyouhei and Aki.  The final act, however, is a total mess (despite having the best pacing of the entire series), introducing new plot threads and leaving those plus plenty of previously-existing ones hanging.  It is not wrong to keep some plot threads hanging in some shows, as they leave certain points of the story up to the viewer…when done right.  Kamisama Dolls leaves a lot of elements of the story unresolved and has an ending practically screaming “sequel hook.” You know the ending is a mess when they don’t even hint at the possibility of the main villain even existing until this last arc.  Much like a good portion of the plot, it is haphazardly handled.

Despite my problems with the plot, though, I will admit that I never actually found the series boring.  It is engaging and entertaining, even during some of the trite fanservice gags.  Kamisama Dolls managed to overdose on flashback at points, but when they did, it was engaging and provided very helpful insight into the characters of interest.  Even when the plot completely fell apart, it never lost me and kept me coming back.

Obviously that's what my soul looks like.

The characters, while being entertaining to watch, are nothing new.  Kyouhei is the guy who just wants to be normal, Utao is a loudmouth little sister with a big brother complex, Hibino is a girl (no offense intended, but she basically is just your stock stereotypical female character), Aki is a psychopathic troll, and so on.  None of the characters even try to break free of their established tropes, but the execution of these tropes fares a lot better in the cases of Kyouhei and Aki, for spoiler-ridden reasons.  Pretty much everyone else in the cast does stand out in some way, but are just cardboard cutout anime stereotypes.

The art and animation in Kamisama Dolls are both below par most of the time.  The character designs are especially noticeable; with the characters sometimes looking both like they have permanent blushes on their faces and that some designs simply do not belong in the show.  Utao looks too cutesy for the context of this show, and Hibino’s chest is much too big for her (it probably is more of a character than Hibino herself).  The characters, from a distance, lose much in terms of definable characteristics and character models.  The Kakashi, on the other hand, are distinct and exquisite in design.  Despite being CG, they are a feast for the eyes, always being fun to watch.  The lighting makes effective use of shadows and darkness, and it is certainly one of the strongest aspects of the otherwise standard cinematography.  The animation itself is passable most of the time, but definitely becomes less fluid from afar.  Similarly, the animation truly shines on the Seki fights, purely due to the Kakashi.  The opening and ending also shows their own signs of laziness, but at least the opening tried to cover it up with some cool fractal designs.  In the end, though, this is easily one of the worst animation jobs ever done by Brain’s Base.

Oh, yeah, I definitely do not want to mess with that thing.

The sound in this show is rather run-of-the-mill.  None of the voice actors particularly stand out, although Utao’s voice (Fukuen Misato) got on my nerves rather quickly.  The same can be said for the score, without any single standout tracks.  The openings and endings, however, are both heavily enjoyable to listen to, with the opening theme in particular being an addicting, different song.  It utilizes acoustic guitar, folk percussion, and the vocal styling of Ishikawa Chiaki (vocalist from See-Saw (various .hack titles), Bokurano), presented with fitting and somewhat unconventional lyrics to make it a standout track among many anime openings.  The ending (also by Ishikawa) utilizes more standard, synthetic production, but manages to be fun to listen to fully several times.

Kamisama Dolls is a difficult show to write about.  It does not try exceptionally hard to be anything more than good at its peak moments, and it does not really fall apart during its lowest moments, horrible plot construction of the final act notwithstanding.  Its production values are not that great, but I feel as though this is explainable.  During the summer 2011 season of anime, Brain’s Base was working on three different shows.  The first one was Natsume Yujinchou San, the third season of Brain’s Base’s most successful ongoing franchise (as of writing this, Natsume Yujinchou is in its fourth season), so it obviously gets a good portion of the available budget.  The second project being released was Mawaru Penguindrum, which is the first directorial anime work from Ikuhara Kunihiko since Revolutionary Girl Utena.  I mentioned how wonderful the series was in my Final Impressions post for Fall 2011, and with a large and influential name attached to the franchise, it got larger access to the animation budget.  What does that leave Kamisama Dolls with?  Not a whole heck of a lot.  This is not an attempt to claim that I cannot criticize the animation due to budget constraints, not at all, since there are shows that have used a tight budget effectively and employed their cheats well (Princess Tutu, for instance).  However, I found it a shame that Kamisama Dolls got the short end of the stick budget-wise.

Overall, Kamisama Dolls is not horrible, but it is still not that great of a show.  I cannot in good faith recommend this to everyone, granted the myriad of problems present in it.  However, that does not stop it from being an entertaining way to spend six and a half hours of your life if you are intrigued at all by the concept.  Everybody else is free to pass this one up.

+Pros: Entertaining, well-done second act; wonderful Kakashi designs; decent cinematography; great OP

-Cons: Meandering plot; leaves too much unresolved; tropetastic characters; average art; Hibino’s breasts being more noticeable than her; subpar animation more often than not; horribly typecast/overacted voice acting; terribly forgettable score

Oh, wow, it turns out that this was our 100th post on FM 139.7!  Happy 100 posts, everyone, and here’s to many more!  Also, don’t forget to write your entries for our Welcome to the NHK! giveaway!!

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