Summary:
Long ago humans planted some Nana-Gou trees to connect the human and Youkai worlds, but the only town where the two sides can get along is in Sakurashin Town. Life’s pretty good, but if a Youkai tries to get rowdy, the successor of the Hiizumi clan will deport the ruffian through “Tuning.” With that we meet Youkai Life Consultation Office chief Hiizumi Akina, dragon incarnation (and mayor) Yarisakura Hime and her oni Kishi Kyousuke, satori (mind-reader) Nanami Ao, and kotodama expert Isone Kotoha.
Anyway, some bum Youkai has possessed an inmate (Yoshimura Kousuke) and become “Trigger Happy” by going around and threatening girls with his handguns. He even sorta gets the new immigrant kyonshi Azuma Rin to help him out, since she is a human-hating racist. Hime and the YLCO put a stop to this pretty quickly, and then Akina tunes the hell out of the scrub. Up on a rooftop, some neko-mimi guy (Enjin) tries to act all hard and villainous in spite of the fact that everyone knows from the OP that all he wants to do is snuggle/fondle Ao and chase butterflies or something. Obviously this is all part of a bigger plot by the sinister Enjin.
Reaction:
Ugh, so the widescreen version doesn’t come out for another 2 weeks, and instead we get this lopped off 4:3 version. At first this felt like a boring amalgamation of Eureka 7 art and Rental Magica premise, but there seems to be some larger purpose behind Sakurashin Town. The play on sakura was very heavy, but I guess when the Nana-Gou trees bloom everyone has horrible allergies. Hopefully, now that some of the lazy background storytelling is out of the way we can get on to some exciting episodes.
At first I thought that Kyousuke was a total stick-in-the-mud, but then I realized he is just mad that his little sister Touka is trying to join Akina’s harem. Most of the YLCO seemed cool, especially Ao with her static-electricity mind-reading. I also really liked Hime with her retractable spear and her ability to slap at Mach 3 to deflect bullets. Hime was featured heavily in that odd omake section at the end, but I didn’t really get the jokes. Akina didn’t seem super-annoying thankfully, though it was very DBZ how his hair got really long while he was tuning.
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1970 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
P….plot? I’d watch a whole season of Hime panicking over her cup ramen.
I can’t believe that Akina and Kyousuke let her fail like that. I’m sure both of them were aware that the ramen was passing into the danger zone and they did nothing.
These are not men you can count on.
Hime’s scarf kinda bothered me a bit. It’s way to long & can easily be used to choke her by any villain with even a tiny bit of common sense. Even if villians are too stupid to see that, wouldn’t it get caught on stuff as she jumps from building to building?
Write it down to the Rule Of Cool(tm) (how often does Batman run into trouble with his cloak, after all?) – although if her strength is anything like her speed, she’ll just walk away dragging along any schmuck who tries that stunt…
‘Course, for all I know of the story that might just as well be a +3 Electrocuting Scarf Of Strangling Passerbys, anyway.
It could be one of those scarves that comes off easily when tugged, like my cat’s collar.
I didn’t know you wear a cat’s collar. Your neck must be very slender.
I’m kind of reminded of that one scene in Warren’s Dirty Pair: Run From The Future where a mook (sensibly enough) grabs Yuri by her voluminous hair – and finds out the hard way it’s some kind of high-tech fibre implant with a switchable “slice off fingers” functionality…
Or my cat has a fat neck…
For all we know, Hime’s scarf serves a purpose, like the spear flag in Busou Renkin.
Ok, we were wrong and Vyktor was right. The scarf actually is a liability, as seen in episode 3.