First Impression – Kamisama Hajimemashita

…It’s not Inuyasha, I swear.

I adore the Kamisama Hajimemashita manga, so I was very excited to learn that an anime adaption was coming out. After the failure that was Arcana Famiglia, I need a good shoujo fix and between this and Kaibutsu-kun, I think this season can do it for me. Of course, this could turn out to be a failure as well, but let’s not think about that yet…

Production and etc – I’ve never really heard of the animation company doing this series before (TMS Entertainment), but they did Mine Fujiko and Zetman earlier in the year, so I assume that this will stay about the same level of quality as this first episode was. I can’t say that the animation was the most brilliant that I’ve ever seen, but if it doesn’t degrade, I’ll still consider it better than pretty much everything by DEEN.

While I didn’t even really notice the OST and the ED isn’t my favourite, I’m oddly attached to the OP song. Not so much the random Nanami fanservice (which feels weird coming from a shoujo anime, which normally likes to focus a lot of the attention on the attractive men around the heroine. …Or maybe that’s because I watch a lot of otome games turned anime), but I like how calming the song sounds. It’s like something Yakushimaru Etsuko (the woman who did the OPs to Penguimdrum and Arakawa Under the Bridge) would preform. With the OP beings named “Kamisama Hajimemashita” and the ED being “Kamisama Onegai“, I think they’re overkilling the whole god theme a bit. …Though to be fair, the entire anime is about Nanami’s god duties… with… romance… things.

…Romance things like this.

Nanami’s seiyuu, Mimori Suzuko (Sherlock in Milky Holmes and Himawari in Yuru Yuri) sounds more or less how I expected her to in the role. Ishida Akira as Mikage? He did a good job as well. The role that totally blew me away though was Tachibana Shinnosuke’s performance as Tomoe. He nailed that role and Tomoe’s arrogance completely. It was perfect, even though I was expecting a different voice for the character.

Damn, this guy is fabulous.

Story Adaption – It’s been a while since I read the first chapter of the manga (probably around a year) and apparently they left quite a bit out, but this episode felt… slow to me. Maybe it’s purposeful since the OP and ED feel calming, but I felt like nothing much happened. This is probably due to the contrast with the latest chapters of the manga I’ve read recently as well, which are way more dramatic than the first one ever was. Hopefully the story picks up once we’re over the whole ‘Nanami is a god and Tomoe is an asshat with a heart of gold’ introduction is over and the side characters are introduced. He wasn’t in this episode, but I’m really looking forward to seeing Kishio Daisuke (he played Natsuki in UtaPri and is the lead singer for GRANRODEO) in his role as a tengu next episode.
Characters – Looking at her in the anime, Nanami is actually a really stereotypical shoujo heroine. …Or at least she seemed like one this first episode. The only time she really came out of that was for the whole making-Tomoe-submit-by-kissing-him scene. I forget if she was like this in the beginning chapters of the manga (I don’t feel like re-reading them at the moment), but I feel like I’ve seen the stubborn heroine vs. arrogant guy a thousand times before. …Though that’s not necessarily a bad thing since it’s a formula that works and I know that Nanami became her own character as the story progressed in the manga. I guess I’m just worried that another shoujo anime is dumbing down the heroine for whatever reason. As for Tomoe, I really liked what they did with his character here. He was just so… fabulous. I’m looking forward to seeing him move out of his (seemingly) selfish behaviour and more into the more tsundere behaviour that happens in later chapters. His character has it’s flaws of course, and I hope the anime gets far enough to cover the reasons behind them. My only huge problem with the characters were Kotetsu and Onikiri. …Good god, those two are annoying in the anime. I realize that they’re there for comic relief, but that brings me to my next point…
…This show fails as a comedy. I found absolutely nothing in this funny. On that note though, I’ve never really laughed due to the manga either (maybe once or twice; it’s very rare). Like I said above though, I like this show more because of the romance aspect. As long as it can meet my standards with those scenes, this anime is good to go. …Which shouldn’t be hard since Arcana Famiglia sent my standards plummeting downwards. No, I’m not going to be over that for at least another half a season.

End Thoughts:

Overall, I enjoyed this. Maybe not as much as Kaibutsu-kun, but that anime has the added comedy to it’s genre. I imagine Kamisama Hajimemashita should pick up as more characters are introduced since they bring out different sides of Nanami and Tomoe. The production seems good enough. It’s not great, but it’s not all that bad either and the simplicity kind of gives the anime it’s own personal style. As a bonus, they’re also sticking close enough to the source material for my liking. Whatever they took out, I didn’t care enough to remember it anyways. I can see potential with Nanami’s character since they’ve portrayed her with enough of a backbone, and I think that will work well for the anime. …I just hope that people won’t be too put out by the lack of actual comedy and how stereotypical the storyline looks. I think this will be the calming anime for me to watch in between all of the action series that seem to be present this season.

About

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.
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22 Responses to “First Impression – Kamisama Hajimemashita”

  1. Amutofan123 says:

    asldjsdlfksldf TOMOEEEEE~

    It was so great being able to see him and Nanami animated and I can’t wait to see and hear Mizuki and Himemiko and some more romance scenes and Kurama and… and… AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

    All this beautiful glorious shoujo this season is killing me! I’m going to be fangasming so hard. Especially over Tomoe. Because Tomoe is great.

    • Karakuri says:

      I KNOW!!!!!! I want to see that one story as Nanami as a child and Tomoe taking care of her!!!!! ARGH, I don’t know if they’ll animate that far though.

      I love how they portrayed Tomoe in the anime. I hope Mizuki and everyone else gets the same treatment!!!!!

      • Amutofan123 says:

        I hope they animate that far! That’s one of my favorite scenes~

  2. Yuushin says:

    Yaaay xD
    I was really surprised when I saw this will get anime adaptation. Haven’t watched episode yet through ^__^; hopefully it won’t disappoint 🙂

    • Karakuri says:

      I’m less disappointed than I sound. I think I just like pointing out flaws at this point since I used to just say that I liked everything.

  3. Highway says:

    Hah, Highway and Karakuri watching shoujo again! Like usual, I didn’t know anything about this show, and I was actually really pleased with the show. Maybe it’s our different expectations, but I didn’t think that the first episode was slow at all. It seemed like quite a bit of exposition took place throughout, without it feeling like an infodump (except for the prologue part where they just explained Nanami’s circumstances, and that didn’t go on long enough to be problematic).

    In contrast to you, I found a lot of funny stuff. The antics of Kotetsu and Onikiri, Tomoe’s aloofness, even the protestations of the old hag that she’s just a frail old woman. I was also amused by Nanami’s almost constant blushing.

    Really, the show worked really well for me, and seems to be something I’ll enjoy watching.

    • Karakuri says:

      Ahaha we should make this a habit xD. Hmmm, maybe it was the exposition that made it seem slow to me. I just feel that nothing was accomplished and I want the narrative to move ahead to were the stuff I liked is.

      …Yeah, I don’t know about the comedy. I think this is the one and only thing labelled as a comedy that I don’t find funny. I enjoy it for all of it’s other parts though, so this still works for me.

      Again, I like this a lot more than I sound like above. I’ll enjoy watching this as well~

  4. akagami says:

    After how Inu x Boku SS disappointed me, I wasn’t sure if I was willing to try out another youkai type of show. Read somewhere it had Fruits Basket vibes so I thought I would give it a whirl, as FB was great.

    The first bit was painful (I didn’t like the OP and I don’t like the old way of speaking Japanese), but the rest of it was pretty entertaining.

    I differ in my opinion from you Karakuri in that I didn’t mind Kotetsu and Onikiri and found it had some good funny spots, I burst out laughing several times.

    This season is looking worse for me than last, 19 shows and I only managed to drop 5. This season I have 21 and the only ones I might drop are K (where is the plot?!?), (PSYCHO-PASS, depending on how it goes, I really don’t know what to expect), Sukitte Ii na yo (I remember dropping the manga because I found it lacking, we’ll see if the material is better animated), and maybe Hayate (I’m a big Hayate fan, but the character designs just have me wincing. And even if Hata is writing the story, if’s still not the manga. I want a true season 3!!!)

    I’m skipping Magi and Btoom since I’ve read both mangas and didn’t like them (the former starting out strong and then sputtering and for the latter survivor deathmatch stories just don’t interest me).

    So assuming I drop 4, that means 21 – 4 = 17 shows I’ll be following. Gah. And I just got Torchlight 2 (because D3 was just a horrible disappointment in my eyes, what do you mean I can’t configure my characters? And they had the nerve to call it a RPG?!? I’ve lost all faith in Blizzard. Serves me right for buying D3 without reading any previews or reviews).

    I’m curious where this goes, and what powers one gets as an Earth Deity. How does one power up? That writing ability seems overpowered.

    • Highway says:

      Oof. I started and finished Summer 2012 with 19 series (mostly cause I wasn’t going to drop any after making a big deal about watching 19 shows). So far this season I’m watching a lot less, but I know it would get up into the teens if I started counting, plus some things haven’t started yet / had subs out.

      I also liked the OP song. It was so deliciously odd.

    • Karakuri says:

      I don’t think this is quite like FB, but it certainly isn’t like Inu X Boku either.

      You didn’t like the OP? Because of the style or is it some other reason?

      Ahahaha I don’t think I’ll ever find those two funny.

      I think K will either be amazing or a complete flop. If they can figure out some kind of plot to go along with the animation, fine. But yeah, the whole things seems like it’s too big for it’s own good. I still need to get past episode 4 of Hayate.

      Well, hopefully you manage to keep this. The manga for this anime is worth reading at least.

      Uhhh… to tell you the truth, to this day I have no idea what the limits on Nanami’s powers are. She does function as a kind of god of marriage though as the story progresses.

      • akagami says:

        I just re-watched the OP again and I have a more favorable opinion of it. I think it was probably due to the timing… I know next-to-nothing about the show and they start the show off with the OP that shows a girl (who I have zero interest to at that point) cosplaying? It definitely started the show on the wrong foot for me.

  5. AllenAndArth says:

    the manga is quite good
    i have great expectations for this series

    • Karakuri says:

      Oh? Another reader of the manga? Yay! I’m keeping my expectations lower just because I din’t want to feel disappointed later. I don’t see any reasons why this would fail though yet.

  6. Liza says:

    I heard a lot of good things about the manga so I was excited to watch the show. I really did like it. ^_^ I was surprised how much I liked Nanami right off the bat. Usually characters like her aren’t my favorite but she pulled it off.

    • Karakuri says:

      The manga is quite good!! If you like Nanami here, just wait. She gets even better. She does have a great down-to-earth personality on her.

  7. Joojoobees says:

    I rather liked the first episode. I love the art style. I’m definitely looking forward to more.

  8. Gecko says:

    I really liked the manga, although I could never quite remember to keep up with it. So I’m happy to see an anime adaptation.
    I can’t say I’m thrilled with the OP or ED, but the OST isn’t bad. It fits. And Tomoe’s voice is perfect for the role. It’s exactly what I thought it would be.
    I have great expectations for this, especially because they’ve brought out the comedy in this. I wasn’t laughing, but I was smiling. And that’s about my max when something is funny anyways. Nanami seems even better animated than in the manga from what I remember, and her seiyuu does a great job really giving her a voice. I couldn’t figure out what role I had heard her do before until I looked her up and found out she was Moe in Poyopoyo… Kind of sad that that’s the role I know her from, really. But Moe and Nanami somewhat similar.

    • Karakuri says:

      I think Tomoe is the best portrayed character thus far. He’s completely different from how I imagined him, yet he fits his role perfectly.

      Nanami’s seiyuu does do a pretty good job as well. Her voice isn’t overly high pitched and the voice fits. …It would have given a completely different vibe if someone like Kanazawa did the voice work. …I can’t say that I’ve watched (or even heard of) Poyopoyo.

  9. Moni Chan says:

    yep… it’s inuyasha, but cute. It was the opening son that got me

    • Karakuri says:

      I really liked the OP song as well~ and if the manga is any indication, this story should continue being absolutely adorable until the end of it’s run.

  10. Felice says:

    Actually it’s kishou taniyama that plays Natsuki in UtaPri and lead singer in Granrodeo.

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