Even when you leave the village in the hopes of finding your own life, dead bodies keep showing up in karaoke bars.
What They Say:
Kuga moved to Tokyo to start a new life, but after finding a dead body in an elevator and having his sister blow up his apartment. The old life is hard to leave.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sometimes in life, you just can’t win. That seems to be the case for Kuga, a young university student who has come to Tokyo to change his life but finds that some things are just impossible to do. And life throws some good curves at him, such as the opening of this episode where he’s at a party at a restaurant with others that he knows in the department and he learns that he’s there as the newest sacrifice. That is, he’s there to be the latest one to ask out Hibino, as it’s a requirement of all the new guys to go and strike out with her in this way. Kuga’s a pretty decent guy overall and he’s game for it in a flustered kind of way, but it’s an instructive moment to see that he does actually try to do it, even if it flames out without him going all the way with it. So many characters never have the nerve to get to that point and it hampers many series.
The evening goes even worse for Kuga when he and Hibino step into an elevator to discover a brutally murdered man in there, blood everywhere and deep cuts to him. Kuga handles it fairly well, and even Hibino surprises with how calm she is, but it eats at Kuga as the man has a mark on him that seems to indicate he’s from the same village as him. And that’s not the only thing from his village that has followed him as later on his sister, a cute and young girl named Utao, arrives with her oversized mechanical/spiritual doll called a kakashi that she’s still learning to control properly. She’s come to tell him some very unsettling news in that someone from their village, who had been kept locked up and in chains because of how violent he is, has escaped. The mere mention of Aki to Kuga has him instantly on edge, and they skip any drawing of things out as Aki himself comes right through the window with his own kakashi.
It’s an encounter that doesn’t go well to say the least and we definitely get a clear impression about how these two have a history together and that it’s one that Aki very much has an issue with. While he’s content to let things lie for the moment, it’s complicated for Kuga since he wants to have a normal life and not be involved in the customs and problems of the shrine and the village. But with Utao put into his care for the duration, under the pretense of getting some additional training, he has to figure out what to do with her as well. With Hibino able to help out, they manage to bring things full circle with her in an amusing way while also bringing her into the circle with what’s happened, though there’s an edge to her that makes you wonder how much more she knows because of the way she handles herself in the midst of all of this.
In Summary:
Kamisama Dolls offers up an intriguing first episode that presents us with a lot of information over the course of it as well as a good look at who Kuga is and his personality. There’s a whole lot left open of course, but the setting is well handled, the fact we’re dealing with college age people is a huge plus and the quality of the animation is spot on and definitely appropriate for the story at hand. The larger story for the series is only lightly touched on here, but we get a good look at its violent side and one of the people that may be involved with Aki coming to Tokyo as well. The inclusion of Utao is the only piece that makes me wince just a little since it’s another element of putting a young character in the line of fire, but she does have that whole small god thing on her side to help her out a bit. The show does some good stage dressing and setting here and offers up a lot of potential, but feels like it could go in any number of directions at the moment.
Grade: B
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
