First Impressions – Mikakunin de Shinkoukei

Cuteness has never been so unknown~

Oh my god finally Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is here! I swear after seeing the trailers for this I was instantly drawn towards the moe character designs which took me back to Yuru Yuri and Love Lab, but will this be more than the average cute girls doing cute things anime? I sure hope so.

 
Well, I think we can all agree there’s only one word appropriate for describing this show: cute.

 

 

Cute Girls

Two pairs of siblings.

Sumairii\\ Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is a mouthful. Unfortunately, it seems the title hasn’t reached the necessary critical mass for people to give it a cute little abbreviation. And the English title, Engaged to the Unidentified, isn’t any better either. So I guess I’ll just refer to the show as Cute Girls for now. With that out of the way, the gist of the show basically boils down to the characters. The heroine, Kobeni, is your standard, domestic high school girl. You know, does cooking for the whole family and whatnot. Which makes her grade A, gold standard waifu material (I can’t believe I just wrote that). Her sister, Benio, is your standard wolf in sheep’s clothing, so to speak. Under her refined exterior in public lies a huge lolicon-pervert. Which is hilarious as long as you’re not her target.

The ship has set sail.

Kobeni’s fiancé, Hakuya, is your standard dandere. Except without the dere part, so I guess that just makes him emotionless (or at least he appears eternally taciturn). Obviously he cares a great deal for Kobeni, but from what we’ve seen so far I can’t justify attaching the “dere” description to him. I will give him brownie points though, for being such a gentleman to his fiancée. Hakuya’s adorable little sister, Mashiro, is your standard gap-moe loli. Basically her cuteness comes from her attempts to act classy and mature, which generally fail when her inherent childishness shines through. It also doesn’t help that the siblings are from the boonies (specifically the mountains) and are thus unfamiliar with the city life (never eaten cake or seen a traffic light before).

Cuteness Overload

Mashiro-tan and her body shield.

Foshizzel\\ Right off the bat Mikakunin hits us with some fantastic character designs by Ai Kikuchi! That said even though I found them to be cute looking! So which character design did you like the most? I found it really hard to choose just one out of the main cast, but if I had to pick one of them I would probably go for Mashiro who was sporting those super long sleeves in the second half! I don’t really know why I found that part of her design to be interesting but just watching her bounce around was really hilarious like the moment when she jumped on her Hakuya’s shoulder at the end of the episode? Wow that was super cute. So yeah for a first episode I was surprised how animated the girls were and yes I know technically that is their job as an animator but for some reason I just got the biggest kick out of watching the girls spaz out like Benio? Whoa she really acted super crazy around Mashiro and Kobeni! I think she is second favorite character from this episode; however I have a feeling by the time I get halfway through this series I will probably like all the characters.

Extra Moe

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As you can see, there’s really not too much to say about the show. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just every once in a while there comes a show that’s enjoyable but not much for discussion. Silver Spoon comes to mind as a recent example (with a second season airing any moment now). You’ll also notice I used the word “standard” a lot. That’s because there’s not a lot of originality going for this show. Perhaps the most unique things about it are the names Kobeni and Benio. I don’t think I’ve ever heard them used before. But what Cute Girls lacks in novelty, it makes up for with cuteness. The character designs are very round and soft, and the interactions between the characters are simple and humorous. So yeah, gratuitous cuteness abound, resulting in a highly relaxing and fun watch.

Well that was a ton of fun for me and it looks like Mikakunin is off to a good start with the hilarious comedy and it appears there will be some kind of romance blooming between Kobeni and Hakuya later on? That leaves me feeling quite excited to see where the story goes or will this be something similar to a Tamako Market set up with nothing happening between them? Either way I hope SOMETHING happens for that part of the story, but as it stands right now I will return to this series week after week just too watch the crazy characters running around doing cute things!