Review - KamiChu Vol. 1 - Little Deity
Reviewed by Richard Brownell on 8.31.2007.
Score: 8/10
A lot of the anime we've reviewed on AniDis thus far is guy anime, or manime as I sometimes call it. It's violent and/or sexual and typically aimed towards the male crowd. But we do like to get a little variety here and KamiChu couldn't be more different from shows like Gantz. And despite my not leaning towards these shows normally, I really like how this one starts.
A young girl named Yurie wakes up one morning to find that she is now a god. A note on translation is the Japanese word used is "kami" which can mean god or spirit depending on interpretation and preference. Geneon chose to use "god" which can seem odd that a river or even an object can have its own god. But whether you prefer spirit or god, Yurie is now one.
Yurie is the shy type. There's nothing particularly special about her. She goes to school like a normal girl, has some friends and a cat, and has a crush on a boy at school. But she finds herself becoming immensely special once everybody knows she is a god. She first tells her friends and one of them is from a local shrine. She brings Yurie to the rooftop to call some wind. At first it doesn't seem like much, just some wind out at sea, but it ushers in a huge typhoon upon the town. Now it's fairly evident to everybody that Yurie is a god so it only remains to be seen how they react.
Each episode of the show, while developing the overall plotline of Yurie learning to be a good, can stand somewhat on its own. In episode two, the shrine that her friend works at is having some difficulties. It seems the god there has left and only Yurie can help find him. She gives her friends the ability to see all the various gods floating around the city (little did you know gods are all over the place; you just can't see them).
Sadly, Yurie's cat then runs away. And at the worst possible time. It seems the god of poverty is on his way to the town and he's making everybody miserable. But surely there must be something that can be done about him besides sending him away. Though Yurie is unsure of what her true purpose as a god, in these early episodes it almost seems like her power is to solve people's problems. But this doesn't become easy when her friends start charging admission to get her advice and throw a festival in her honor.
In the final episode, things get a little bizarre. It seems somewhat out of place in a show entirely about gods to have aliens in it, but it deserves some leeway and freedom with artistic license since it's not a deep melodramatic violent show for guys only; it's a lighthearted story about a girl and how she uses her powers for good. So when the Japanese government has imprisoned a stray Martian girl, it's up to Yurie to set things right.
KamiChu is a very colorful show with a lot of things going on in many of the scenes. There are hundreds of gods just in this first volume. Many of them should be familiar to those who have studied Japanese culture or who have watched other shows that have traditional Japanese spirits in them. Some are a bit odd, like a scene where Yurie enters a sort of vacation land for the gods and comes across outdated CD formats talking to each other. But all of them, in the real and god worlds, are animated quite well.
The feeling that KamiChu as a whole and Yurie in particular evokes is that of Spirited Away. While Yurie does not have the iron resolve and bravery that Chihiro in Spirited Away had, she has a strong spirit and a charm that makes KamiChu very enjoyable to watch. These opening episodes may not have you on the edge of your seat, but they are a good start to a show that could bring a lot of smiles and laughs to the table.
Special Features
DVD Features
· Contains episodes #1-4
· 2.0 Dolby Digital English and Japanese Audio
· Two English Subtitle Streams (Dialogue translation & Signs Only translation)
DVD Bonus
· Production Gallery
