Kita ze Inbou! - キタぜ陰謀!

Series Information

ANN Encyclopedia | AniDB | AnimeNfo
Genres: Comedy, Fantasy
Production: A-1 Pictures
OP: 「motto☆派手にね!」(”motto☆Hade ni ne!”) by 戸松遥 (Haruka Tomatsu)
ED: 「産巣日の時」 (”Mushi no Toki”) by 戸松遥 (Haruka Tomatsu)
Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens Homepage

[ Episode 1: Girl of the Primitive Shrine ]

SUMMARY

We start if off with a young Jin outside capturing a spider and putting it inside a container. Just then, a beautiful, blue-haired goddess appears behind him, her holy-like presence putting him in awe as she smiles and pats Jin on the head. A strong wind blows and after Jin opens his eyes again to find the goddess gone, along with his newly-captured spider, holding up his empty container to the light of the sun.

Present day: Jin completes his statue of a shrine maiden carved out of wood from a sacred tree, apparently for a school project of some sort. As he gets ready to head to school, the statue literally breaks apart to reveal a dashingly beautiful young woman inside, the very same blue-haired wonder Jin saw that time as a child, only this time, her attire was more fitting to modern time (strangely enough, she came alive wearing them).

Jin takes her inside his home, where the goddess questions Jin about how he was able to materialize her. He replies back saying it was probably because he used part of the sacred tree. The two go to the shrine where the tree originally was only to find that the land is being readjusted and the tree has been cut down. The goddess is horrified and is saddened, concerned with what will be of the land with its guardian gone. A bug crawls at her thigh, “tainting” her. She calls them impurities of the world and wants to find a way to rid them from the world. The pondering continues at Jin’s home. To break the silence, Jin unintentionally gets the goddess’s attention with the TV, fascinated by technology. She gets an idea after watching a maha shoujo anime, using a magic wand and turning it into a sort of exorcism staff. She tests her godly smiting powers (in the name of love and justice) on some more spiders, and lo and behold, it works like a charm. She extends out her hand to Jin, finally introducing herself as Nagi.

It seems that since Nagi has nowhere else to go, she concludes on residing with Jin. Moreover, she needs him to continue smiting cleansing the impurities. Preparing for Nagi to be living with him, Jin tells Nagi to take a bath (while he hides away his Playboy mags in a box labeled as “textbooks”). Jin goes out to buy some spare clothes for Nagi, but feels quite embarrassed having to buy extra panties for her. Jin takes a bath, but hears the phone ringing. Running naked, he snatches the phone from Nagi before she could answer back to Jin’s friend Tsugumi, who is on the other side of the line. After a long day, Jin has Nagi sleep in his room where it’s safe, while he sleeps in the living room. Before sleep, the two exchange a goodnight to each other. Jin feels worn out, throws himself onto his pillow, and proceeds to sleep. In the middle of the night, he opens his eyes, hearing footsteps and sounds of the door, then followed by the toilet flushing.

REVIEW

It’s official: I love Kannagi. As my number one anticipated series this season, it certainly did not disappoint me. The art is beautifully done, the animation is smooth, the music is a bliss, and the direction is executed nicely. The main character Jin is likable. He doesn’t have ota stink (at least I don’t think so) and he’s pretty refined from what we’ve seen. He can prepare meals and he was even trying to explain about how recycling is done to Nagi, so I think the way he handles situation is pretty down to earth. Sure, he may have had a few kinks with thinking of Nagi and her incredible, holy body (that he himself was responsible for) but he’s a guy, so what can you expect? I’d be pretty embarrassed if I had to buy panties too. BTW, that store he went to to buy taiyaki for Nagi was called “11-Seven,” a nice little play on the convenient “7-Eleven.”

I really love Nagi’s character, as she’s clearly not one of your typical archetypes of characters we see in everyday anime/manga. Not a loli, no such tsundere, but the one and only goddess. Her reaction to technology was really interesting. She seemed to be adjusted to TV quite fast, actually. It wasn’t like she went bonkers and destroyed it, thinking it was a demon. Nagi also seems to have a knack with puns as much as I do, and that’s totally fine in my book. Tomatsu Haruka debuted to anime only a year ago, but she’s come a long way now that I think she’s a really great seiyuu. She fits into Nagi’s shoes with no fail, delivering a great amount of strength into her character. I thought she sounded hilarious in the scene where Nagi was going on about horrendous murder and such.

Of course, who can forget the wonderful OP and ED theme from her? While the ED sounds nice, it doesn’t attract as much attention as the fine OP sequence, which reeks of Yamamoto’s brilliance, a good smell. You probably know him as the man responsible for the famous Hare Hare Yukai ED sequence and the Motteke! Sailor Fuku OP sequence. motto☆Hade ni ne! is no different of a direction. The stellar performance and scenes of movie production/filming reminded me of Hare Hare Yukai’s scenes of Haruhi directing, along with a bit of Bouken Desho Desho?, which isn’t a bad thing. I love how Jin is Nagi’s manager. I didn’t think Haruka’s voice could go that low, but nonetheless, she has an amazing, beautiful voice that I just can stop listening to the song. The lyrics are cute as well. Speaking of music, Kousaki Satoru of Haruhi Suzumiya/Lucky☆Star music fame is in on this project, too. I simply admire his composition of music. It gives off that warm, gentle, and tranquil sound to it, but he can also pour out the action and adventure into his music. The unique genre of music he creates is what I love the most about his music. Not only that, but it syncs with the scenes rather well.

While the first episode may not have been anything convincing to the viewer, it has potential to get better and better, just like Lucky☆Star did. There are plenty of laughs inserted here and there (especially seeing Nagi wearing Jin’s shirt with the words in large print, “Sense of shame”), and the characters are interesting. We’ve yet to meet the few other characters but they’ll be coming along shortly. The last part of the episode made me laugh a lot. I knew I was gonna love the show, but I think that scene pretty much sealed the deal for me. So even gods… go to the bathroom.