Gingitsune

Title: Gingitsune Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Supernatural Rating: 6.1/10

Summary: Makoto is the fifteenth generation heiress of a small shrine to the god Inari. Her father is still the shrine’s priest, but Inari’s divine messenger, Gintarou, has appeared to Makoto, marking her as true successor. Gintarou has the ability to see a short distance into the future and to find lost objects, but is unmotivated and foulmouthed. In spite of this, he becomes friends with Makoto, and together they help those who come to the shrine.

Review: Another slice of life anime but with a slight twist. Gingitsune stands out a bit by creating a bond between Makoto, a seemingly ordinary high school girl and Gintarou, a divine messenger. When the anime started you get the instant sense of friendship between the two as they jokingly argue back and forth, sharing hellos and goodbyes early in the morning, and spending their peaceful days together. As the story continues a few more characters come into play, but the peaceful days never really go away. It was a slow paced and sweet tale of a girl and her supernatural friend.

I don’t like to be nit picky about art for a slice of life anime so I wont dive too deeply into it. It served its purpose and portrayed the very calming atmosphere that comes with the genre. Even during times of drama and crisis you still had a feeling that everything would work out because of how soft the colors were. The artwork was simple and sweet just like the anime. I appreciated that the characters all had multiple casual outfits outside of their typical school uniforms no matter how simple they were. Even reuse of the same jacket with different leggings or shirts made the anime feel a little more realistic, because let’s face it everyone has that one favorite jacket they wear everywhere. My only real complaint was the characters were a little less stiff. None of their moments felt natural which pulled me out of the anime a bit. The simple art and character designs fit Gingitsune’s low energy environment well.

I wasn’t sure why I kept coming back to this anime week after week. I never had a sense of panic, excitement, or even bursts of joy during any of the episodes. The characters’ problems were always resolved within the twenty four minute span and a crisis was always averted. The comedy was decent at best and I got a couple chuckles here and there. Yet at the end of every episode I always had a small grin on my face which to me says a lot. I didn’t need to be invested in the characters or their lives to enjoy the basic principle of a young girl and her other worldly friend. I only wished that the anime would be a little more upbeat from time to time to keep my attention focused. I would have liked to see a lot more character development because when it comes down to it that’s all that you can really do in these plot lines. It’s nice to watch someone grow up and learn from their experiences. The characters weren’t bad and they each had their own little charm, but overall forgettable. I can hardly remember any of the episodes because none of them seemed like that big of a deal. Even one of the main characters, Satoru, who seemed to have a rather dark secret ultimately ended up being an average kid. His entire story arc was half baked and shrugged off once all was said and done. I’m sure I could have skipped a couple episodes here and there without missing any major turning points. I do hope that in a second season they try to make their personalities a little less set in stone.

Probably the only thing I did really enjoy about the anime was the opening theme song performance, Fhana’s Tiny Lamp. I actually ended up checking out the band’s other performances and was pleasantly surprised. They have a very distinct sound and I wouldn’t be surprised to find them playing the theme song for many other slice of life anime in the future. Without fawning too far over Fhana, the composer Tatsuya Kato did a beautiful job with works like Fen-Fire and 銀太郎の占い. A truly talented individual.

Final statements: It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the anime, but I don’t really consider it anything special. It’s nice to watch in your spare time and can help you relax after a long day. If you’re in the mood to drown everything else out and watch things be resolved within twenty four minutes then Gingitsune is for you. Tack on another low priority watch for a slice of life anime.