Five Reasons to watch Kyouran Kazoku
If only it had a maid guy…
I really didn’t care too much for this series at episode one, but after sticking it out through the somewhat unfortunate “little girl punching bag” arc, it’s starting to reward me with some great laughs. I’m not gonna sit here and tell you it’s the best thing out there, but you could do worse than to hang out with five people, two animals, and a robot.
1. OP/ED
With an opener so spastically animated, you could watch once a week all season and still not figure out what’s going on. And the EDs rotate every week. Apparently they’re even different per channel, so if you switched around in theory you could keep watching the same one, but why would you do that? Each one has a cast member singing, each fitting the character’s personality. As expected for those of you who do watch, Ginka’s has been the best so far. Which brings me to…
2. Ginka
I am so wary of gay characters in anime; Japan seems to have an issue with homophobia that eclipses their xenophobia even. So when I saw Ginka at the end of episode one, I sighed internally. But as it turns out, he’s become a great example of how humor springs from turning a stereotype on its head. Not a gay stereotype mind you, an anime stereotype. Ginka is so casually manly and heroic — seemingly fearless in fact — and he’s got a very well-developed spider-sense. Simultaneously, he loses sleep about his pores.
3. Neko-san
I don’t mean catgirl Kyouka herself, she’s still a somewhat annoying character. But she’s been minimized a little by the huge cast and crazy situations. What I mean is, Chika calls her Neko-san, and I think it’s freaking hilarious for some reason.
4. Food
Every time food figures into the show, it’s been cooked by Kyouka, and while horrible food is an anime staple, I’ve never seen it actually cry out for the merciful release of death before.
5. Sheer Randomness.
is that a word? An entire plot revolves around a travel agent so good at her job that her sales chart wraps around the ceiling, and her rival curses her using voodoo learned from a correspondence course. As Ouka walks through his living room, Yuuka’s rolling around on Teika the Lion’s back praising how soft and comfy he is. When Kyouka jumps from desk to desk at the travel agent, there’s a retarded operatic sound effect. Low-budget virtual reality. Or cut to the travel agent chief: “Sparkle!” And that’s only this week. The whole thing goes at ninety miles a minute, and since there’s rarely any rhyme or reason there’s no need to try to anticipate what’s next.
Sooo… anyway, it’ll never be deep, and it’s pretty dumb when it tries to get serious, but Kyouran Kazoku Nikki is a welcome blast of pure spastic fun.
