A look behind the scenes of Kyousougiga, and around the shrines of Kyoto!
What They Say:
Episode #05.5: “The Kyoto Live Action Chapter”
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The story of Kyousougiga takes a back seat this week to bring us a behind the scenes look at the inspiration for elements in the series.
I love it when anime series do specials to show off show locations and other stuff behind the scenes. Especially since I doubt I’ll be traveling to Japan anytime soon to play tourist. We don’t usually get to see the specials until the series are released on retail disc. One of my favorites was Princess Jellyfish’s trip to the aquarium with two of the voice actresses. Kyousougiga follows that template by having voice actresses Ryouko Shuraishi (Un) and Erika Nakayama (A) show us around the shrines and temples of Kyoto.
The first several shrines all have elements which are mixed and matched in the series. Often they just inspired certain scenes and scenery, rather than exactly duplicating the architecture. The theme behind the two differently shaped windows is wonderfully symbolic. The girls pick up ‘stamp books’ to have stamped and signed at each shrine they visit. They’re a little fancier than the stamp books you used to be able to get visiting national parks and monuments in the US! The calligraphy of the monks are beautiful, I’m jealous!
After visiting three shrines the girls take a break to visit a fancy bakery and get their cake on. They should have called the segment ‘prepare to drool’ because these were some fancy pastries.
For the third day of their journey and the fourth shrine visit the girls are joined by the always ‘something else’ Kazuki Yao, who plays the Chief Priest in this show but is probably better known by most anime watchers as voicing Franky in One Piece. (This special is worth watching just to see what Yao is wearing… oi.) We get a bit of history about the real, historical priest Myoue, who was supposedly responsible for bringing tea to Japan… because he needed the caffeine to meditate easier. Sounds like an appropriate model for the show’s Myoue.
Finally, they give us the background on the name of the show. Kyousougiga is a play on the name of the famous scroll Choujuugiga, which displays anthropomorphic animals carrying on human activities. They call it the ancestor to all manga, which I can’t really argue with after seeing the artwork on it. This also explains the animals we see hanging out around the leads during the show.
As much as I love these types of specials, listening to the actresses ham it up is tiring. The shrill ‘ooohs’ and ‘sugois’ are so forced that I find myself looking for moments when the actresses let their guard down and quit the cute act for five seconds. Which, thankfully, does happen occasionally when the camera continues to hold on them long after they’ve said their canned responses.
In Summary:
Sure, some of the viewers are going to see this as a week off for Kyousougiga. Don’t overlook this special, there’s some interesting insight here which ads a nice depth to certain scenes and locations. It’s especially fun when the actresses become engrossed in their tour and forget that their being recorded. We’ll return to Looking Glass city next episode, and start getting back to the heart of the matter. Until then, enjoy a look at some interesting far off places and have a cup of tea.
Episode Grade: B
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS 10.8.4, via Safari 6.0.5, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.
