12 Days of Anime #4: Kamisama, Dolls for all ages

Kamisama Dolls was my favorite show of the year, allow me to elloborate why and blab on about its awesomeness.

So I’ve just watched the first special for Kamisama Dolls and frankly I was very disappointed, it was just a POV clip of Utao trying on various swimsuits with a tiny cameo from Aki right at the end to restore some dignity. I hear what you saying, “but all specials are just excuses for fanservice” and you’d be right but thats the exact reason I loved Kamisama Dolls. It never played the ecchi/fanservice card despite being a harem show of sorts, it didn’t need that gimmick, it was entertaining all by itself.

So why Kamisama Dolls? Well the show intially caught my attention with its trailers… it had two different trailers. One just showed off the girls with some silly comedic music and jokes, it really didn’t look very promising at all but then they released a much much darker trailer and I was like – WTF is this anime?

Going into a show not knowing what to expect is always a great thing, as you’re less likely to be disappointed and I most certainly wasn’t. And having the most awesome OP of the season didn’t hurt either, you wouldn’t believe how many times I listened to this OP, love it.

Ultimately there are two sides to Kamisama Dolls which are contributing factors to whether you would like Kamisama Dolls or not. It depends on your perception too, you could see its a silly show about a girl with brother complex or you could see it as the beautiful bromance that it is. Because as much as the show tries to make Utao the star of the show, Kyouhei & more so Aki are clearly the stars of the show.

Its the tightly nit yet dark past between the two of them which gives the show its character and to be honest there isn’t really a clear bad guy in the show which is awesome. The series very gradually uncovers bits of the story as the show progresses at key points that make you at times go “what, there’s more?“, some pretty good story telling here. Problem is though, that so much is added to the story that it always gives you the impression that there is more to it and not everything is being explained which leaves much open to interpretation.

Some may complain that the cast grew to big and that some of the characters where not necessary but as they carefully revealed new parts of the story each character does add significantly to the show, either adding more about the Seki/Kakashi legend or expanding on other bit part players… well maybe not Kuuko but she was hawt and all sorts of fun.

It’s no secret that the budget for Kamisama Dolls wasn’t very big but the stuff that they pull off with what little they had was awesome. The fight scenes between the pseudo-mecha kakashi are quite flashy and towards the end of the series are damn right intense!

Kamisama Dolls was a great show which kind of caught me by surprise as I went in with no expectations other than “it has some mecha in it“. The finale episode didn’t really conclude anything which was mildly disappointing but left the open the chance that there will be a 2nd season, so even more reason to watch this. Highly recommended viewing.