Common Name: Gugure! Kokkuri-san
Score: 7/10, 4/5
Length: 12 Episodes
Genre: Comedy, Supernatural
Summary: As most people know, Japan is a land filled with spirits and deities who are of a fickle nature. They're as likely to aid you as they are to curse you. One such spirit can be evoked by playing a game of divination that will compel the spirit to answer your question. Apparently no one warned Ichimatsu Kohina that this game should never be played alone, who has called Kokkuri-san on her own, drawing both his and the the rest of the spiritual world's attention. Good thing she's an emotionless doll...I think.
Review: It's strange how some of my favorite anime are shows that I pick up and watch (all in one sitting since I have no life) with the knowledge that it's going to be idiotic. Maybe I enjoy these shows more because the job of determining if a show is good or not is already done for me. It's just one less thing I need to worry about during the experience. Or maybe it's because 90% of these spontaneous shows feature absurd humor that is meant to baffle all reason and standards of what is acceptable. Every now and then, however, some of these weird shows have something more to them than just reveling in the absurd. Gugure! Kokkuri-san is one of those shows with something more to offer.
It is still a pretty weird show, though.
The thing is, this "something more" is pretty obvious from the start. Despite being an absurd comedy that is strangely aware of its absurdity, the show itself starts off looking gorgeous. There are beautiful and eerie set pieces that establish the supernatural tone that makes Kohina's bizzare ritual of speaking with Kokkuri-san seem far more serious than it actually is. True to the rest of the show's form however, anything serious or reasonable flies out the window...or rather through the window as Kokkuri-san enters and Kohina proceeds to act like her usual self.
A human so emotionally dead that she claims to be a doll.
Despite her general malaise towards life itself, though, Kohina comes across more as an awkward, occasionally nerdy young girl with a strange obsession with ramen and other junk foods. There's nothing wrong with that. While she never comes out and says it, it seems more likely that she just doesn't know how to deal with other people, let alone make friends. So, as form of self-defense, she's marginally contented to shut herself off from those desires and just live her life as an emotionless doll. Kokkuri-san, on the other hand is 100% not okay with Kohina's lifestyle. So, taking pity on the poor girl, he decides to curse her home with his constant presence. This "curse" usually just takes the form of him acting as a positive, motherly figure who moderates Kohina's eating habits and keeps the house clean. When that's not necessary, though, he assumes his adorable fox form and becomes something of a calming stuffed animal for Kohina. For a while, Kokkuri-san even helps Kohina grow and address her personal problems.
That's a good thing, right? Admittance is the first step to recovery, right?
Unfortunately, any good that Kokkuri-san does is almost entirely negated by the rest of the show's cast. Inugami, a dog demon Kohina showed kindness to when it was a normal puppy but died shortly after, is the first to join the Ichimatsu family after Kokkuri-san. If Kokkuri-san is a force for good in the story, Inugami is both his rival and a force for evil. While Inugami has sworn to serve Kohina as a means of thanking her, all it ever does is pick fights with Kokkuri-san and lust after Kohina. I say "it" because Inugami's main character trait is how fluid it is in terms of it's gender and sexual preferences. Granted, it's a lot easier for it because it can literally change it's gender at the drop of a hat. The sex thing though....Let's just say Inugami is a little irredeemably messed up in the head.
REALLY, REALLY, REALLY messed up in the head.
After Inugami comes Shiragaki, a shape shifting tanuki who brings misfortune to the families he haunts due to his obsession with women and gambling, and he does much of the same as far as the show is concerned. Every now and then, though, he shows that he's more of a neutral presence than a negative one. While he can't be bothered most of the time, he occasionally does some good for the sake of maintaining a status quo in the house. Most of the time, however, he's out for himself since he can't have people thinking he's a nice guy or anything.
Like I said, not nice guy material.
While there are other supernatural beings besides these three, they're each hardly worth mentioning since they only show up once or twice and don't contribute much to the story itself. If anything, they serve as padding for the show which, admittedly, has a lot of issues. While this is common for any comedy anime, the gags don't hit quite right and are a bit overdone at times. Because of this, the show's plot can sometimes feel like it drags in some places but moves well at other points. Not to mention I'm personally not all that fond of the weird pedophilic humor the show takes on from time to time, though I do think I understand the reason why that humor is present. In many ways, this show is a kind of parody of the Japanese and anime and social norms. While that aspect is certainly entertaining it isn't the reason why I like this absurd, wonderful show.
This is.
Remember how I mentioned earlier that at the start of the show the art was gorgeous? Well, every now and then, that beauty comes back for those brief moments when the show gets kind of real. While the humor is good most of the time and the characters are pretty great in their own right--except Inugami who is just awful--what I like best are these rare scenes we get from time to time. These are moments when we see Kohina showing signs of weakness and letting go of her doll persona for just a little while. She is, after all, human. As much as she might try to laugh things off or just distance herself from others, she is still a little girl who wants to be friends with someone, or more accurately with anyone--even a fox spirit known to curse those who play his game alone. More than that though, there are subtle moments every now and then that hint at Kohina's situation being more serious before Kokkuri-san and the others arrived than she lets on. For starters, she lives alone in a pretty large mansion. Occasionally, Kokkuri-san also let's slip the real reason he has "cursed" Kohina and doesn't act like the fickle fox spirit he's supposed to be. There are even a few hints that Kohina's obsession with the supernatural didn't exactly come from nowhere. It doesn't take much to add up the dots, but the point remains that the show really shines when it "gets real." It's because of these moments that we get something more than just an absurd comedy anime. Instead, we're given a bizarrely sweet story about the friendship shared by those in this surrogate family of misfits.