Category: Kobato

With this episode, I’m glad to have stuck with this series. It was a fairly simple episode, but so many emotions were put into it. This episode showed that the creators know how to build up and use it to create heart-warming drama.

And with well fleshed out characters like in this series, even the episodes with cliched premises turn out to be a treat. This probably was the best “sudden illness”-episode I’ve seen in a long, long while. First of all, Sayaka’s illness actually made sense within the storyline, rather than having it as a deus ex machina: she’s extremely stressed through her work, and this has been going on for God knows how many months. It’s actually a very subtle hint to how much she’s worrying, because she’s gotten quite good at hiding it.

Second of all, the illness is not just used to create cheap drama, but what Kobato went through in this episode was surprisingly touching and genuine. There are a ton of characters who seem to have emotions bottled up inside of them in this series, and I think that with Kobato they’re hidden the deepest. We now know that she’s suffering some sort of trauma due to the death of a loved one. If the amnesia is because of that, or something else caused it we don’t know yet. Amnesia is a really dangerous plot device though: it can lead to a very compelling series, or be a show-destroying plot device when used cheaply. Thankfully Kobato seems to be edging to the former, but I can’t say for sure yet.

It’s also here where Kobato’s voice actress proved herself. She really got into her role and managed to handle the dramatic parts really well, not crossing the bounds into either emotionless or overacting. I have to admit: I only started blogging this show because the current season really doesn’t have anything else. But this episode really surprised me how charming this series’ innocence has become.
Rating: *** (Awesome is not exactly the right word, but I really really liked it)

So this episode showed that Kobato isn’t planning to abandon its episodic stories in its second half. While you have a share of episodic series that start with a plot at this point, it seems that Kobato is going to continue with its current formula. Thankfully though, the episodic stories have gotten a lot better from what they were at the beginning of the story.

Again, it’s just questionable that Kobato and Fujimoto just “happen” to run into people with problems over and over, but the boy in this episode had a pretty charming story to tell. It didn’t try to be overly dramatic, and instead kept with a simple story of a boy running away from home because he can’t adjust to his new house. It was well built up and the characterization for the boy was pretty good.

I also believe that this is the episode in which Fujimoto turns in one of the genuine good guys, and crawls out of his shell. At this point, he’s got nothing to hide from Kobato anymore, so he’s probably going to lighten up over the next few episodes. At this point, it’s enjoyable enough to see Kobato and Fujimoto doing stuff together, no matter how trivial it may seem (like in this episode, delivering sweet potatoes). That’s actually a pretty good sign.
Rating: * (Good)

Oh, screw it. I was going to blog Dance in the Vampire Bund instead, but its second episode was so underwhelmingly generic that I see no point in it. It was just another chance for Shinbo to draw more naked little girls and while the first episode was an interesting enough spoof on a Japanese TV-show, the second episode degenerated into a generic teen-aged love story in high school where the lead characters have generic superpowers (you can’t really call them vampires anyway: they’re just another one of these lead characters who have superpowers and who just “happen” to have spiky teeth. Catgirls have those too!). Nothing whatsoever caught my interest in it and I’ve gotten really sick and tired of Shaft and Shinbo at this point.

So yeah, why not? Kobato is definitely in need of more love at this point. It started off a bit iffy, but it has evolved into a surprisingly likable series. Amidst all of the melodrama, moe and stereotypes of this season, it’s good to see such a simple series with genuine drama. It’s a great thing that there are 24 episodes in this series, and at this point the series has really grown on me.

The problem with a lot of stupid characters like Kobato is that it’s very easy to make just stereotypes of them: make them always clueless, limiting their development. But Kobato turned out to be such a lovable character. Sure, she’s an idiot but there’s a lot more to her character than just that. What many people seem to forget is that she also is someone who takes action, and has a lot of passion for helping people. I can respect that of her.

Compare that with the idiots of Baka to Test to Shokanju: The characters are either too “smart” to fit in the characters or just blind sheep who follow behind the smart ones. Beyond one or two quirks, there’s nothing else that defines them. That will remain fun for a one-episode OVA, not an entire series. Series like Kobato on the other hand definitely have an uneventful start, but in the long run they amount to something much more worthwhile.

In this episode, we probably see Kubato at her best so far. Most of the episodes so far have presented some case that would always amount to a happy ending, however this time it’s different. The tree in this story was sick, it was being a nuisance to the neighbours, the people in the neighbourhood found it impressive, but at the same time didn’t support Kobato while she tried to save the tree, and she actually got nearly crushed by it.

Also, as for the thing s that happened earlier in this series: I love that bear. A black bear that has his own Baumkuchen shop as a punishment of some sorts. I have to give Clamp credit for such a great idea. But seriously, even the creators, even though they’re not particularly the best that Madhouse has to offer, did a very good job of bringing these characters to life.

And of course, what also rocks about this series is that it’s not necessarily a show about teenagers, but it’s one of those rare series that’s about people of all sorts of ages: there are little kids, middle schoolers, teenagers, college students, young adults, adults and even the elder. It’s got a bit of everything, and Kobato is actually one of the few teenagers here, without making it seem that the world revolves around them. While from the outside, you’d never suspect it, but this series has a lot of things that other anime can learn of.
Rating: ** (Excellent)