Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi

Synopsis:

Female college student Aoi inherited her deceased grandfather's ability to see ayakashi. One day, while Aoi is feeding some ayakashi, a demon appears! He declares that Aoi's grandfather owed a great debt, and as compensation, Aoi must marry the demon! Aoi refuses, and decides to pay off the debt by working. - MU

My Take: (MILD SPOILERS AHEAD – READ AT YOUR OWN RISK)

Truthfully, I picked this title to watch because I wanted to watch a rom-com/shoujo anime. My S.O. and I watch most of the anime we see together – the process usually starts with us looking over the anime line-up two weeks before the season starts then we pick titles individually. I usually pick stuff that we might both like; if he doesn’t like an anime and I’m still interested, I can just simply continue watching it on my own whenever I’m able. Anyway, I digress.

I have quite an interest for Japanese folklore and other myths, so I was interested with this anime when I saw the title (my S.O. wasn’t, so sad). The first anime that pops in my head when I watched this was Kamisama Hajimemashita aka Kamisama Kiss, and I have to say that they’re similar and dissimilar in some ways. Obviously, the similarity starts with the Japanese folklore, demons, and the supernatural involved in the main story. However, one can ascertain that both titles have a certain charm of their own.

While Kamisama Kiss concentrates on the fluff and shoujo aspect, Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi touches more of that. I guess this has to do with the age difference of the female main leads, Tsubaki Aoi being (basically) an adult and Momozono Nanami being in high school. I am not saying that Nanami is naïve and immature, rather Aoi has a lot more experiences, being older of the two, and the anime shows that there are more issues in adult life as compared to still being a minor in society.

You might ask me: are the ages of the two different female leads really that important? My answer is: no. What I’m saying is that Kamisama Kiss concentrates on the romantic aspect of the shoujo genre; on the other hand, Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi, while still in the shoujo genre, focuses more than the romance. I believe that this has something to do with the target audience between the two titles as the former tends to be picked up by the younger demograph, and younger people in that age range usually have very little to worry about. Anyway, I digress again.

In its early stages, the anime is a bit episodic. What I do like about its pacing is that there are these questions that are presented right from the first episode. While they are not really deep, super-secret, plot-twisting mysteries, they are ones that can keep you wondering as you progress through the series, and have some additional more to boot.

One particular puzzle that seemed to stretch throughout was: who was the youkai that saved Aoi when she was still little? This mystery was answered on the very last episode of the series; and what I do appreciate about this particular thing is that every time Aoi has a flashback on it, the voice of the youkai changes (in the Japanese dub at least). So, is it really Oodanna (the Ogre Master), or is it Ginji? The voice dubbing is distorted of course, but if you strain your ears and concentrate, you can hear either Oodana’s or Ginji’s voices in different flashbacks. I really love how the anime kept me guessing on this one, and I’m glad that my initial hunch was the answer (although it was only heavily implied and not openly stated by the characters, but come on…)

One other mystery to name a few that wasn’t answered in the series is: is there a hidden reason why Tsubaki Shiro promised his granddaughter to Oodanna? It’s so sad that the manga is still ongoing, and from what I read somewhere it’s not that popular a series to be considered a localization to other countries. The fan-translated manga is still on chapter 4 (to which I haven’t read yet) and I am hoping it gets finished because I want to know what Tsubaki Shiro’s deal was (considering Oodanna didn’t really like Aoi’s grandfather).

Despite the fact that there is an abundance of male characters, not to mention that the series gives off a reverse-harem aura from a mile away, I am greatly surprised that the male characters do not scramble to Aoi’s good graces nor do they try to seduce her whatsoever. Not even Ginji, whom I was so sure was going try and be more than a friend to Aoi. Evidently, Oodanna is her significant other in this series no matter how Aoi denies that she is the Ogre Bride. Moreover, everyone else steer clear of Aoi’s affections and do not attempt to woo her in any way.

I think that really appealed me to this anime: no further drama in the romance aspect. Seriously, I was going to be so pissed if Aoi breaks Ginji’s heart. I support Oodanna to be Aoi’s future husband, but I also like Ginji as a character and I don’t want him to be heartbroken. Oodanna, as Aoi’s fiancé, also is very gentlemanly when it comes to Aoi, which is very surprising for a youkai ogre. He is very respectful of her decisions and tries to make her happy when he can, as well as do whatever Aoi likes. He simply waits at the sidelines and try to see if she can do things on her own, or if she requires any help. More often than not, he helps her indirectly with Aoi finding out later but only when the problem passes.

What’s endearing about his character is that he never did anything untoward to his fiancé apart from addressing Aoi as his fiancé/bride, to which Aoi denies (then later does not later in the series). The only thing frustrating about it is that they never kissed or hug or anything a couple does, not even on the last episode! They also never said any words of love between them *pfft*. Despite the lack of those, Oodanna is clearly in love with Aoi and he shows his affections in little ways through his actions and the way he speaks with Aoi through their moments together. Aoi does reciprocate those feelings, but not often enough. Gah!

Admittedly, I have this love/hate relationship with Aoi’s character. Sometimes I like her as the female lead, but there are also times when her actions are very frustrating. What I do like about her is that she solves her problems on her own and in her own way i.e. cooking food. The only times that she plays damsel-in-distress are when the problems themselves are supernatural in nature.

Ginji is one of the plethora of characters in the series that I really like, but I will not be expounding on his character – he is simply a very nice, well-likable guy who has the potential to steal Aoi away from Oodanna but does not. The other thing that I simply like about this anime is that you can’t really hate the many characters that pop-up throughout the series. Whenever they’re introduced, they’re all up-in-arms against the human girl who suddenly appeared in the Hidden Realm and most of them are very antagonistic against Aoi. They don’t redeem themselves in a grand way either, but simply come to understand the female lead and her strange ways and accept that she does not bear them any malice. Except Raijuu – he is simply bad, apparently. Even Oodanna got really pissed off with him with what Raijuu did to Aoi.

Another thing is I simply like about the series is the OST, most especially the Opening songs and the (many) Ending songs. First off, the first opening song Tomoshibi no Manimani (In the light of the Light), sang by Aoi’s voice actress Touyama Nao, was already good with it’s wagakki-style of music, but nano’s Utsushiyo no Yume (Dreams of Netherworld) took it to another level (I already mentioned this song in a previous post); I really love the song so much and it’s one of the reasons why I liked this anime more than I should have. Here’s hoping that the videos do not get taken down:

OP 1

(Sidenote: Every video of the OP2 I found has been taken down :( However, I found this god-send of a website and I couldn't find any way to embed their video here so just click the link to view the OP2 - I love it so much.)

Second, there are quite a number of Ending songs for this two-season anime which really surprised me – ten in fact. There are two EDs for each respective season, added by eight character theme songs which were featured on separate episodes as the ending song (you can look up MAL or YouTube for these). What really struck me the most was Akatsuki & Suzuran’s character theme song Toki no Suna (Sands of Time) on episode 5: 

A little backstory: Akatsuki and Suzuran are spider siblings in the series, and they are voiced by real-life siblings, Uchida Yuuma and Uchida Maaya. In this song, they are nostalgic of the person (Aoi's grandfather) who saved them from their past hardship and took care of them for a while. Anyway, I don’t want to be in trouble with YouTube and their respective companies, but the rest of the endings songs are really good, too.

So, do I recommend this anime series? Yes, I do BUT this anime may not be for everyone. My sentiments in this post are purely my personal opinion but I do quite like the anime, and I want more people to see and like it as well. It's very underrated and I'm hoping a lot more people will pick this title up ^_^.

P.S. I meant this post to be very brief but I got carried away. I spent almost 5 hours for this review D: