Series Review: Kotoura-san (7/10)

Instant Summary: Kotoura, who's an outcast because of her psychic ability, found a guy who accepts her for what she is.

Kotoura-san is the underdog of the season. It's designed to be the underdog of the season. Despite the incredibly cheap character designs and simplistic concept, the anime achieved something that many ambitious projects didn't: it's funny, it digests easily, and it's easy to connect to the characters.

Well... for the most part, anyway. It's adapted from the 4-koma where most of the content is about the burden of her ability, and the precious friendship she made with the rest of the cast. It isn't easy spinning a story out of this, and the outcome is an incredibly predictable plot and ending. Thankfully they didn't dramatize it too much; the story became the weakest part of the show, and it would be painful if we have to focus on it any more than that. The light-hearted and comedic ending might really be the best way to go.

There's a lot of mixed reviews online. I'm just not sure if everyone had set the correct expectations for this title, based on the source and the obvious limits of its budget; Kotoura-san never had the potential to go very far, and being average is about the best that it should be doing. And I feel that it managed to do more than that.

There's a million things that could be improved about Kotoura-san, right down to the god-awful animation. But it is meant to be a really low budget project working on a really simple source. There are no highlights, but there are no real flaws as well, and that is somewhat a feat in itself. It's a forgettable, but enjoyable one.

Plot/Concept: Incredibly simple, but remarkable enjoyable.
Story Style: A extremely straightforward style turns out to be pretty effective after all.
Audio/Visual: Subpar
Value: 7

First Impressions: Kotoura-san

Instant Summary: A girl can read the minds of others, but her childhood was ruined because she didn't learn to respect the privacy of others.

An underdog appears!

It's simple and it works. Kotoura is a lonely and depressed girl that puts a barrier between her and other people, but our male lead shamelessly barges into her life, making sure she won't be lonely again. Yes, it's a fairly cliche setup, but the important thing is that it didn't felt forced at all. In fact, the whole title felt more easy-going than anything, with plenty of humour and a tad bit of fanservice, despite the pretty dark introduction and undertones.

My favourite part is how the main character consistently break Kotoura's mental barrier by raping her mentally, flooding the mind-reader with perverted thoughts. It's hilarious how the guy is completely innocent in this case, but Kotoura is defenceless and endlessly flustered in these cases.

And Kanemoto Hisako, our dear Ika-musume, sounds so freaking awesome with those flustered sounds. HanaKana, on the other other hand, sound pretty unimpressive in a non-moe role.

While the production values are pretty darn low for my liking, I'll still definitely enjoy this.

Outlook: Pretty damn good!