Chi’s exploring more of her new world and meeting some fascinating animals – and scary people!
What They Say:
A heart-warming story of a kitten’s daily adventures and its owner family.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the first season of Chi’s New Address out of the way, we had a lot of material thrown at us as Chi’s family moved to an apartment where they could have pets. It’s a pretty big move in order to keep an important member of the family, but that’s what some people will do. The fun of the move and the exploration of all the new places and people that populate the new compelx is pretty fun, but also just the variety of the animals we get to see since that provides Chi with more than enough material to play off of as it goes on. But in the end, it really is all about Chi and her family as they’re a pretty close-knit group and the interplay between them really does drive things.
With the second season, the show continues to build on what came before with this new location and the all new cast. But some of the familiar make their appearances as well as Yohei fills in his friends at school, Mayu and Ryu, about the move and that they have a cat there. There’s some good fun as he brings them over to meet Chi and you have the silliness of Ryu being afraid of cats, but it’s just good to see Yohei dealing with friends. There’s even a birthday episode that hits in this season for Yohei, which of course has Chi being terribly involved with the cake and decorations when the family isn’t looking, but seeing Yohei in his house with others his own age and their kind of silliness and happiness definitely hits the right notes for the characters.
One of the larger storylines that plays through quite a few episodes in this season is the introduction of a young woman that comes across Chi in the park and and thinks she’s lost. So she names her Minya and wants to take her home, but she can’t because of problems there. But she’s just so in love with cats even though she can’t have one. Of course, Chi knows her own way home, but the two paths collide again when Dad ends up going to the pet store to get stuff, bringing Chi and Yohei with him, only to discover that she works there. And is beyond ecstatic that she’s come across Chi again. She’s a very outgoing person and it’s kind of nice that the family invites her back to play with Chi, but she’s just so oblivious to social niceties in some ways that she can be a little off-putting.
Another arc that I like has the family deciding that it’s time to go on a vacation of some sort, but they also realize that it’s something where they have to be able to bring Chi along since she’s such a member of the family. While there’s an idea to go visit the ocean, they have to figure out a way to try and get Chi to travel. She’s so used to going places that only lead to “bad” things like the vets, so there’s a cute trip on the bus with dad and Yohei with Chi in a basket. Chi’s panic is comical at first and it goes in a really bad way as it goes on, but there’s a lot of cuteness to it all. The real fun though comes when Dad decides that it’s time to get a family car so they can travel easily without any problems. Well, except for the problem that Dad hasn’t driven in years and is really uncertain about it. And Chi is just interested in playing in the car and messing with the plastic covers or shedding in general. Mom is also a lot of fun during this as she teases him about his driving and the way he’s so utterly nervous about the whole thing.
Chi also expands her knowledge of the area in general during this season as she meets another cat named Tama that introduces her to different cats in the area. There’s one lot that they go to where there are probably a dozen cats that are just lounging around and being mellow, but they all perk up when they find out that the legendary cat Mr. Fuji is wandering into the area. This shaggy cat is comical all on his own as there’s an air of senility about him in a way, but more so because of the way everything he says gets interpreted into really big and grand ideas about how they all should live their lives and deal with the problems they have. Chi’s not one to “fall” for this in a way, but that’s mostly because there are other shiny things to play with. And Mr. Fuji himself since Chi knows little in the way of dealing with ones elders.
In Summary:
Chi’s New Address moves right along in its second season with more character introductions and an expansion of the way Chi deals with the world. The show works the three minute format really well as we get lots of quick hits and gags with Chi doing her thing, but it also brings in enough heart as well with how the family operates and even how they treat others. I liked the introduction of the pet store lady and the whole silliness of Chi being in a backpack with Dad walking around with her. Yohei has some great scenes as we see him with friends and it’s just really nice to see such a normal kid and his friends. The family unit as a whole is what works here and across the twenty-six episodes of this season we see a lto of things going on, from Chi’s active nature that gets her into plenty of trouble to the way we see Dad growing and doing things with the addition of the car and his attempts to really master it. There’s a lot to like here and this season makes me smile a whole lot.
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.