jojollyrogersgo
August 10, 2014
Mixed Feelings
From the perspective of someone who watched both seasons of Uta no Prince-sama, Kamigami no Asobi is a solid 6. It's by no means a spectacular show, but it does its job decently well in 12 episodes and makes for an entertaining, if not particularly fascinating, experience. The concept is a unique one: Kusanagi Yui, a pretty normal Japanese girl, is summoned to a strange school to help teach young gods how to care about humans. In the first episode alone, she encounters many of her new classmates, as well as Zeus himself, the commanding king of the gods who created the very school out ofthin air and can restrict the other gods' powers.
As the show continues, it becomes slightly obsessed with "normal" concepts, as Yui attempts to essentially teach the gods how to be human; this either works or doesn't, depending on the episode. Sometimes it can be very entertaining to see how the gods deal with the new ideas, with some of them enjoying themselves and others remaining totally confused. However, this also serves to erase any urgency that might've been created by the fact that Yui and the gods have only one semester's time to spend at the school. We know that they will be stuck there forever if the gods don't learn to care about humans in time, but there isn't any real worry about that goal being unreachable.
Around halfway through its run, the show's main storyline begins to kick in, with deeper secrets revealed about certain gods, all of which serve to lead up to the climax. This is where I personally became more disillusioned with the show as a whole, mainly because of its pacing and how the story was ultimately treated. Its largest issue is that it relies on emotional investment - it doesn't really have any impact if you're not invested in the characters, and although I was enjoying the show up to that point, I didn't really feel attached to anyone except my personal favorite god, so it was difficult for me to care about most of the story. This problem mainly lies in the fact that each god's backstory was featured in only one episode, and because most of these episodes were also padded by everyday "shenanigans", the backstories are rather simple and poorly fleshed out.
The characters are nice enough. None of them made an impact on me enough to be added to my favorites list, but I did enjoy watching some of them. Others annoyed me, whether it was due to (in my opinion) too much screen time or unappealing personalities.
A short rundown:
Apollo is arguably the most featured out of the gods. I didn't care for him, as his usual attitude is very bubbly and he tends to dominate any scene he's in; I also found his backstory one of the weakest, especially considering the mythology upon which it was based.
Hades, god of death, was my personal favorite. While he wasn't anything groundbreaking and only got one real focus episode, he was also one of the most entertaining characters due to his reactions to various situations.
Takeru was a Japanese god, and I frankly can't recall much about him. Neither he nor his quieter brother Tsukito impressed me particularly much.
Balder is possibly one of my least favorite characters in the show. I initially liked him, but suffice it to say that he plays a large part in the darker plot and ultimate climax, and that he's cast in a light that I found pretty out-of-character and frustrating. We are naturally supposed to sympathize with him to a point, but I found much of his eventual behavior to be either unsympathetic or just plain insulting.
Loki, trickster and friend of Balder, was conversely a pretty decent guy. He, too, is focused on more and more as the show draws to its close, and although I found his character to be around as shallowly developed as the rest, Hosoya Yoshimasa delivered an outstanding emotional performance that served to make me like Loki that much more.
Thor, Dionysus, Thoth, and Anubis are all more minor gods who also appear in various episodes. Due to their receiving less screen time, there isn't much to say about them, aside from Thoth being quite entertaining with his habit of slamming both hands against a wall / onto a desk / etc. in every appearance. Zeus himself does appear past the first episode, but isn't featured as much as I'd have liked him to be.
Finally, there's Kusanagi Yui herself; while more detailed than Uta no Prince-sama's Haruka, she's not an optimal main character in my eyes. She begins the show with a very decided backbone and strong opinions, standing up to Zeus himself and trying to deal with her new surroundings. However, as the show goes on, she just lets the gods and their personalities take over. We never really get to a point where she speaks up for herself and tells arguing or upset gods to shut up or calm down; she just continually makes weak protests or looks wide-eyed and worried. There are some points where I expected her to logically react more strongly, but she remained easygoing and passive. It's not a huge problem most of the time, but it did become frustrating for me as time went by.
The art of this show is basically easy to look at. Hair shading is an interesting, rather watercolor-esque style, while the character designs are pretty appealing and backgrounds are prettily done. There's nothing groundbreaking about much of it, but it is very pleasant. OP animation didn't appeal to me as much as ED, mainly because of a grittier and darker feel in the latter.
The musical score is relaxing and pleasant, with some nice flutes and strings used - not memorable per se, but then again it's been some time since I saw the last episode. I didn't care for the OP although it was catchy, but the ED stuck in my head after each listen and I personally found it a very cool song.
All in all, if you're looking for something light and fun, Kamigami no Asobi isn't a bad choice. It's not a masterpiece and has its few problems, but I also found it easy to watch and to comment on each episode. For me, it's just a cute, rather fluffy anime with characters that won't irritate you too much and a unique story.
