Inari shows that there is more to her than being a stalker.
What They Say:
Episode 2: “Ordeals, Secrets, Amaterasu”
Inari finds a way to spend quality time with her crush after he stays home from school. Amaterasu Ohmikami summons her and Uka to the Celestial Plains, where Inari is tested–and failure means both of their lives will never be the same.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
We rejoin Inari in her quest for winning the heart of her crush, Tanabashi, who is in danger of potentially missing an important basketball game.
Inari’s behavior would be more endearing if I could separate the cute from the inherent creepiness of it. She’s basically stalking Tanbabashi at this point. She takes a trip to his house to check up on him, attempting to make good for her behavior when she was imitating Sumizome by transforming into yet another classmate to see him. She doesn’t even realize that he’ll never get to know her by acting like this.
The even sadder fact is that Inari is so caught up in her own thoughts that she doesn’t even realize that she could have been close to him already if she’d taken the initiative long ago.
Awkwardness in the face of love is the least of Inari’s problems, because Uka was ordered to bring her accidental protégé up to the Celestial Plain. The girl is basically kidnapped and escorted by magic train to the realm of the gods to meet with the goddess Amaterasu.
I really was not expecting Amaterasu to be a late-middle aged woman with glasses and a no-nonsense attitude. I like how this show is subverting character expectations with their designs. She gives Inari an ultimatum, no transforming for twenty-four hours or she’ll have to spend all of her goddess training in the Celestial Plain. It sounds easy enough, but Inari hasn’t exactly inspired confidence up until this point. The stakes are even higher for Uka, who will be forced to marry someone if Inari screws up.
Inari may not be the sharpest girl ever, but she’s not about to fall for Amaterasu’s tricks. Amaterasu’s agents attempt to lure Inari into using her power as she and her rival in love head off to the basketball game. Silly situation after situation is thrown at Inari, and quickly she finds herself just making a mad dash for it. Unfortunately this causes Sumizome to pass out from heat exhaustion after the mob of spirits lock the two girls in a storage room.
Predictably, the real moment of truth comes when Inari is forced to use her ability to help out her rival. The true mark of a heroine is, of course, if she can do the right thing at the most difficult moment. She helps out Sumizome and even manages to have a proper conversation with Tanbabashi, whom she finally gives that good luck charm to.
Unsurprisingly Amaterasu claims she passed the test, even as the goddess chuckles to herself that her and her cronies were just bored and looking for some entertainment. Never trust the gods. We also find out that the ‘love letter’ was actually just a request for Sumizome to be the team manager. Once again Inari’s big brother makes an entrance, and boy does he ever have something against the resident fox goddess. Misunderstandings all around!
In Summary:
As predictable as Inari, Konkon may be, it’s still a pleasant watch with enough happening in each episode to keep me from being bored. I hope that it doesn’t turn into a ‘how will Inari embarrass herself this week’ sort of show though. It looks like she has some new friends and some new responsibilities coming up in her future, and I want to see more interactions between her and the celestial residents. The opening shows off a large cast of them that we haven’t met yet. Much like the first episode I’m most curious about Inari’s brother. What’s his problem?
Episode Grade: B
Streamed by: Funimation
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS 10.8.4, via Safari 6.0.5, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.