When things go too well in your life, it is just like inviting something bad to happen. With fun results for the viewer.
What They Say:
Ichiko Sakura has led a charmed life–so much so that it affects the lives of those around her. Momiji, a poverty god, is dispatched from the heavens to relieve Ichiko of her abundant good fortune, and help balance the scales of happiness in the world.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the manga series by Yoshiaki Sukeno that’s running in Jump Square, Binbogami ga is a new series from Sunrise that deals with one of my favorite aspects of the gods and divinity used in Japan. That of the poverty god. We’ve seen it show up in various other shows over the years, generally in comedies to be sure, and it always has a certain air of fun about it in how luck and wealth come into play when dealing with a god of poverty. So designing a fun series around it with a lot of bounce, fanservice and silliness is definitely a choice that can work. And right from the start you get a good feel for the comedy that will be used here when said god of poverty can’t believe those watermelons stuffed under someone’s shirt are real.
The show revolves around Sakura, a young woman who has been pretty much blessed with everything she needs in life, from beauty to brains and to wealth and the admiration of many, many of her classmates. While the boys are all over her, there are the girls that can’t stand her. But with her position “from up on high,” she doesn’t care much at all for what they have to say since she’s got it so good. She’s got a mean streak to her but we see that she’s pretty much the type to put on the proper facade to get more of what she wants. All of this goes awry for her though when the poverty god Momiji gets involved with her, trying to get her to see the error of her ways. Starting by hanging herself and then coming out of a toilet is not the best way to get things rolling though.
What Momiji brings to the table is that she’s there to get Sakura to help fix the balance of things because of her good fortune. And being that Momiji is pretty big on how she does things, it gets pretty over the top and wacky in a lot of ways, strangely reminding me of Urusei Yatsura in a lot of ways, as she goes about doing her job on Sakura. While there’s some good back and forth when it comes to the wacky side here, it is balanced by getting a look at Sakura’s past and what she lost as a child that impacted her deeply. This actually leads to a mildly interesting discussion between Sakura and Momiji as Momiji relizes that Sakura’s just not unhappy enough yet to set the balance back on track. It’s interesting as it unfolds and we get more about what it is that Momiji is doing and how it can change things for others.
In Summary:
The opening episode of Binbogami ga is one that’s filled with a lot of frantic and overactive things going on and it generally has a good mix of things that all ties together at the end. Poverty god stories are ones that I almost always enjoy with what they do and this one certainly has its fun moments. Momiji and Sakura hit things well here as characters as we get to know them, but there’s also a feeling that it’s just moving too fast at times, overextending itself in a way. There’s some good humor to be had and some silly situations, but it’s such a rush of madness and chaos at times sometimes that it’s easy to just disconnect a little until it slows down again and gets back to actual story progression. The show is one that has potential, but it’s an opening episode that didn’t knock my socks off yet.
Grade: B-
Streamed 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.
