'Kamichama Karin' anime ~ there was time when grass was greener

Do you have a saying like this in your language? 'Grass was greener in the past', or something like this.

'Kamichama' is a masterpiece created in 2007, and is still one of the 'classic' pieces. Middle 2000s was the time when - still - bishounen were really cool, when main heroines were really cute, when strong people were strong, when enemies had their own reasons, but were enemies nevertheless, when the good was good and forgiving, and everything was probably just a bit too simple for real life, but much more touching, because everything was made to look sharp, fierce and pierce. And there was humour. True, good, silly but funny.

the story
centers on your average girl-next-door, Japanese version. An ENFp, I would say: extroverted, intuitive, feeling. A bright, cheerful, understanding, social, active and brave heroine, who is at the same time sensitive and vulnerable. Her partner is, of course, as he should be, an ISTj - thinking, sensing, introverted. Concentrated, taciturn, reserved and materially-minded, but serious and caring. A row of your-average-supporting-characters includes a shy friend to admire, positive and over-energetic classmate to laugh at, beautiful senpai to look up to and fall in love with, and cunning arch-enemy to hate. Most of them are only 13-14 years old, as it should be in a shoujo.
The story starts with a picture of three select good-looking boys

And shows the Heroine in a beautiful uniform of a Goddess

And bishies only grow in number...

All is good but...
STOP. something's wrong here...
It's Koge Donbo, you remember?
Karin's cat has died, and she is extremely lonely

But Karin isn't that fragile, too

Karin, as she should be, sometimes reminds Dejiko greatly with her delighted, displeased, curious, sad faces

and the unbeatable logic of Japanese anime directors

Other characters in the anime represent compassion, true love, friendship and loyalty in hard times

And of course, the first main obstacle between the Heroine and the Hero is the fact that she loves another

But the Hero doesn't give up that fast and tries to win his points by extreme fanservice

There still may be girls who don't like the Hero himself, as an individual. For those, mangakas and directors are ready to give something else

 but keep the ratings as low as it is necessary to leave the anime within the 'shoujo' genre

 Sometimes we simply need to relax and let go

And those who learn Japanese will certainly benefit from complicated phrases to listen to and decipher

But since this is a serious artwork, there should, there must be some psychedelics

And sometimes we need to remember the roots. Even though 'Karin' will probably be my favourite work by Koge Donbo, I think that he doesn't know the world of anime who never saw Di Gi Charat.

And still, let's not forget this is a shoujo anime with your average adventures like going to the sea, school performance, summer festival etc.

But again, even bishies have their weak points

And enemies, too

And princes, huh?

But still, I must warn you. Only a half of 'Karin' is that hilarious, the other half is deadly serious and I am serious when I say this. There were moments when my heart literally skipped a bit, not because of a fangirl's 'KYAAAH!', but because I was truly empathizing with the characters, like when they feel scared

or sad

or angry

and when they struggle with themselves

>____<
and I was going to be completely serious huh? But how can I when the authors are so sarcastic about what they do? And that's exactly what I respect most in anime creators and mangakas. Being able to laugh while working, being courageous enough to make your characters end up in silly situations and make them behave foolishly - that's great. I mean, a funny character with a tragic past and a psychological trauma is better than a character with a tragic past and a psychological trauma.
The main problem of 'Karin', as of many other animes that are based on an unfinished manga, that the ending gives a hint on what happens in manga, but doesn't show it properly, which makes one think 'hey, you better didn't show this at all'

and while
music
in 'Karin' was nothing outstanding, but not bad (if I may say such horrible things about ALI Project and Marble)

voice acting
was more than perfect. First of all, Sawashiro Miyuki as a male character sounds fabulous. Her intonations and timbre sometimes made me feel uneasy because of their originality. I firmly believe she is one of the rare pieces of gold in our times of faceless cute girls. However, other voice actors were as good. Let's leave mr. Akira aside, he is his usual somebody please f*ck this poseur self, Nakahara Mai - a voice actress I'm not really acquainted with - was very good as a main heroine, not too annoying and not too feeble, just what the doctor prescribed. At first I didn't like Shitaya Noriko's voice, she seemed too slow, but then I understood it's the way the heroine was meant. Katou Nanae was really cute and funny voicing the 'battle cat' perfectly. And I cannot possibly say nothing about Kaida Yuki, who voiced a bishou...jo? Though it's clear from the very beginning, that her character is a girl, the girl pretends to be a boy which explains the choice of a voice actress, and I could not sit still when she appeared on the screen.

conclusion
But still, I loved 'Karin' the same way a child loves reading fairy-tales. Yes, as a fairy-tale. The recent 'Beauty and the beast' was disappointing, but 'Karin' was not. And surely I would recommend it for young girls, their elder sisters, mothers and aunts of all kinds. Grass was greener some time ago, and very simple but beautiful flowers were blooming on it.
oh, simply beware of some fanservice

'Otome Youkai Zakuro' ~ justified risk

an anime based on an ongoing manga, created by Hoshino Lily who was specialising in BL, and directed by Chiaki Kon, who is famous for the same thing. the previous works influence my opinion very much and I was not particularly happy to know that two main people responsible for 'Zakuro' have worked on shounen-ai - that meant for me that 'Zakuro' would be overloaded with fanservice for girls

 especially when the original graphics has FOR_GIRLS written all over its 'face'

however, I was mistaken. 'Zakuro' turned out to be pretty decent, tolerable shoujo, even though it is not a masterpiece

story and characters

are typical, if not cliche. at first sight, we have nothing more than
a type widely considered to be tsundere

a shy but deeply feeling girl

and girls with a positive attitude towards everything and inspiring positive feelings into everyone

coupled with a self-confident ikemen

a cool guy

and a young but serious guy

the characters meet for the first time, devote themselves to common cause, get to know each other better, their feelings grow, they reveal some secrets of their past, constantly save each other, at some point the main Heroine turns out to be a greater existence than she seemed, is captured, the company starts off to rescue her, the Heroine obtains her true power and delivers the final blow to the enemy herself
a very, very boring skeleton it must seem. if there are things that can save a poor framework, than all of them were used in 'Zakuro' to compensate for that

first, the right use of the characters types. those types either become a platitude, or are made into believable characters. the latter happened in 'Zakuro', fortunately. we get to see different kinds of behaviour, different kinds of relationships, different kinds of interactions and reactions, and no one seems odd. moreover, 'Zakuro' offers such likeable characters that I could not follow my usual pattern 'choose one character and forget about the rest'. I used to call this feeling a 'respect', but I am not sure if it does not incline towards 'sympathy', or something else. I am trying to say, even if I was not personally a fan of this or that type of character, I 'could not take my eyes off of them'. the 'shoujo' level did not go overboard either
and humour - that last straw that can save anything. monsters who only want to scare but not to hurt

silly actions of characters who were supposed to act cool

'childish granddaddy' type of characters

and adorable, cute, almost useless characters like Mamezou

this balance is not something easily achieved, in my mind
天晴れ！

music

is the second thing which saves 'Zakuro' from being a mediocre 'watch-and-forget' anime. the BGM composer is said to be Sugimoto Masaru. however, if you have a look at the OST booklet, you will see another name - Nanase Hikaru. while Nanase is responsible for many beautiful and bewitching songs, Sugimoto is an unknown figure to me, but I am happy to get to know his works

OST is something I would call an OST masterpiece. everyone has his own principle on how to decide whether an OST is good or bad, but what I appreciate the most is when the composer(s) is/are able to create different kinds of music for different situations, and when the music presents some interest separately, not as a background. oh, and one more criterion - though I have a great respect towards experimental OSTs, I am not in favour of replacing analog instruments with a single synthesizer. 'Zakuro' OST uses classical instruments, and even violin is not violated as usual manages to create symphonic sound

OP theme was what I liked the least, though 'twas not bad. ED themes were much more interesting. I remembered 'Sakura Taisen', 'Ikoku' and some other anime where seiyuus sang theme songs
天晴れ！

voicing

seiyuus of 'Zakuro' are a group of the most popular, famous and demanded ones. just look at this list: Nakahara Mai, Sakurai Takahiro, Hanazawa Kana, Toyosaki Aki, Horie Yui, Hino Satoshi, Kaji Yuuki, Okamoto Nobuhiko, Kondou Takayuki, Komiya Kazue, Ishizumi Akihiko, Tamura Mutsumi, Iguchi Yuka, Tomatsu Haruka, Inoue Kikuko, Kotobuki Minako. I guess creating 'Zakuro' was pretty expensive due to such a list. however, they all coped with their roles so brilliantly that I was absolutely delighted. the main characters' seiyuus were predictably good, but Tomatsu-san  impressed me with an unexpected low voice. the 'old school' Oohara Sayaka and Inoue Kikuko were just as one would expect them to be. the only thing I could wish for is probably Nakahara putting more effort into training how to portray crying 

天晴れ！

graphics
probably some of the pictures were done in a lazy manner, but the extent of laziness was not critical. mostly I liked the bright vivid colours which, independently of whether you admit it or not, always liven up the atmosphere and cheer up the spectators
if only there were more pictures of the city itself... since Meiji, Taisho and Showa are my favourite periods in Japanese history (as well as 19-20 centuries in world history) I wanted to see more views creating the epoch, but I only saw the 'Ministry' itself, Kei's mansion and a few streets

unlike wider perspectives, facial expressions were done very well

which were sometimes contributing to the atmosphere of the moment so that my heart almost skipped a bit

天晴れ！

conclusion

there are anime series that have a strong basis which seems trustworthy from the very beginning. 'Zakuro' was the opposite. however, I have no regrets I risked. right after the start, due to likeable characters, overwhelming music and interesting plot I felt like I finally found the type of anime I was searching for - the one that made me feel like I felt in my early days, when my breath was easily taken away by what was happening on the screen. 13 episodes in one gulp!
天晴れ、天晴れ、天晴れな～！