KamiChu Volume 1
Hawkeye
Yuri is your average junior high school student; she has family, friends, and a crush on a cute boy at school. However, all that changes when one night she becomes a god, just like that, no explanation, just bam, she’s a god. Of course, she’s not sure what type of god. But with the help of her friends Mitsue and Matsuri, she’s bound to figure it out eventually. KamiChu follows the adventures of Yuri and her new-found powers, and takes the viewer on a trip through the extraordinary world of the spirits.
In the first episode, The Spite of Youth, Yuri tells her friend Mitsue that she’s a god. Of course, her friend is skeptical. These things don’t just happen over night, after all. However, the daughter of a shrine owner, Matsuri, overhears and believes that Yuri is a god, and decides to be her new best friend. To help her discover her powers, they go up to the roof, but Yuri accidentally summons a typhoon. Can she dispel the typhoon before her crush is swept away and killed in it?
In epsiode 2, Please God, word gets out that Yuri is a God, and, of course, no one believes her, so the teasing commences. Matsuri plots a festival to show the common folk her powers, so they’ll show proper respect. However, the resident shrine god, Yamachira, has vanished, leaving Yuri’s best friend’s sister in quite a bit of distress, and Yuri learns of Matsuri’s family’s troubling debt due to the fact that their shrine god is missing. Matsuri asks Yuri for help, and together the girls go looking for the missing god, now able to see spirits in the city, and Yuri gets transported to the spirit world. After all is said and done, Matsuri gets to have her festival for Yuri.
In episode 3, I Didn’t Mean It, Yuri’s cat has gone missing and she’s determined to find her. However, a god has more to worry about them just a missing cat, as the town is on the verge of issuing a poverty warning–basically meaning the city is broke-and stores will close and hundreds will lose their jobs. Yuri and the local shrine god Yamachira post good luck charms all over the city to counteract the poverty god’s bad luck. However, their plan fails, and they must confront the poverty god face to face.
In episode 4, Earth’s Crisis, Yuri joins the god association, and three helpers show up to help sort through all of the requests for wishes. As a gift, they give her a very special request, a really big and important one in celebration of her beginning to fulfill requests as a god. It seems the prime minister of Japan needs help, as an alien has landed and no one has the ability to talk to it. Yuri must find out why the alien has come to visit, and then help it get back home despite the Prime Minister’s efforts to stop her!
The animation is very crisp and clean and the artwork has a sort of fresh feel using vivid colors. Some of the spirits are a bit too cute for my tastes, but it fits well with the overall feel of the anime. The animators also did a good job on making the movement’s fluid and believable; it reminded me a bit of the style used by Miyazaki in Spirited Away.
I don’t remember much of the music. They kept it more as background noise than as the focus, but the voice acting was good and all of the voices seem to fit their characters. Also, the sound effects were-well done, especially during the typhoon in the first episode. It sounded very realistic.
There’s only one special feature on the disc and a brief pamphlet inside describing how the creators thought up the story. I wish there had been more, like an interview, or character bios. Hopefully they’ll be added onto later discs.
Kami Chu is by the same people who produced R.O.D. The TV series and their creativity never ceases to impress me. This happens to be a rather cute anime, but it is creative and original from its concept to its execution. This show defiantly targets a different audience then R.O.D., but is by no means for small children. It deals with the philosophical questions of what a god should do, can do, and shouldn’t do. It’s undeniably cute, but not sickeningly so, and I found it had a refreshing new story. I only wish that they had gone more in-depth with in the supporting cast, though this is only the first disc.
Entertainment: 8
Very refreshing and fun, and yet despite being cute it still made me think. I wish they would go more into the supporting cast, and I like a bit more action then there seems to be in every episode.
Technical: 7
Sound and animation were great, but it was seriously lacking on extra goodies.
Overall: 8
DVD Features: Episode 1 The Spite of Youth, Episode 2 Please God, Episode 3 I Didn’t Mean It, Episode 4 Earths Crisis
DVD Extras: Production Gallery
