Gingitsune

Stories with spirits and humans from literature are always a fascinating tale. The concept of blending between the lines of fiction and reality can be an intellectual story to tell. Often times, fantasy literature brings elements of suspense, horror, and power struggles into stories involving clashes between spirits and humans. However, stories can sometimes be just simple and straightforward. Take Gingitsune for example. It’s a series that defines itself as a fantasy slice of life that is simplistic but yet charming, sensible, and alluring.

Gingitsune is an anime series based off of the manga of the same name written by Sayori Ochiai. The setting takes place ... in the modern ages but fuses it with traditional Japanese themes to transform it into a product of elegance. In such an age is a young child named Makoto Saeki, the only child and daughter of a widowed shrine priest in an Inari Shinto Shrine. She may seem ordinary but Makoto possesses a very special gift – the ability to see heralds. As a well-known phrase goes, “with great power comes great responsibility”, Sekai now plays the role of a girl that can change people’s lives. She’s not alone either because Gintaro, an anthropomorphic fox whom Sekai can only see, becomes her partner and guardian of the shrines.

As what it is, Gingitsune isn’t a horror story or vengeance with anguish spirits out to get back at humans. Rather, it’s a simple slice of life fantasy story that conveys the life of Makoto Saeki. More importantly is also the significance of character relationships. This is especially true earlier on as we get to witness how Makoto interacts with others, in particular Gintaro. The duo often works together because of Makoto’s circumstances of being unable to accurately tell fortunes. This is a problem as most Sekai priestesses are proficient in the art of fortune telling. Luckily, Gintaro serves as her helping hand as the duo are able to serve their roles with Makoto bringing many hopes and promises. As promising as the series goes, the story seems to be a bit slow at first. Most episodes focuses on specific events that can be simple as solving a problem to more complex issues dealing with human relationships. This is where Makoto comes in as her ways of thinking is beneficial with human knowledge. On the other hand, Gintaro comes into play whenever there is a supernatural problem that becomes more than what Makoto can handle on her own.

Because the series isn’t focused exclusively on an ongoing story or arcs, there can be some issues with pacing. It sometimes may feel slow further evidenced by its serene atmosphere. The way it presents the series is simple but yet offers a concept that can be captivating. Most of this is captured by character interactions. Makoto and Gintaro is an odd duo to get to know just by simple observation. Gintaro often finds Makoto as a nuisance and is indifferent about human affairs. However, there are various times when he truly cares for Makoto’s well-being and offers her useful advice. Makoto can be a bit argumentative with Gintaro’s actions or ways of thinking. Yet because a human and spirit relationship can be complex, the duo can work out problems collectively to protect and help the helpless.

As the series goes on, there are also other characters’ relationships and backgrounds revealed. This includes another prominent successor of the shrine, Satoru Kamio. The young man can be considered a prodigy especially in the arts of kendo. But unlike Makoto, he didn’t grow up in a very well treated environment. In fact, his childhood had people mistreat him and causes the young man to be isolated as who he is today. His closest friend and fox herald is an 80-year old being named Haru. Unlike Makoto and Gintaro, the relationship between Satoru and Haru can be quite one sided at first. Haru often cares for the well-being of Satoru, so much that it borders on obsession. (Typically involves members of the opposite sex) Unfortunately, Satoru seems to rarely respond in a way that can be deemed as appreciation which because of his stoic personality. It is not until later though where their relationship is more emphasized and viewers will get to see how much they develop. Relationships are also further explored in a realistic manner especially involving parents. We get to see how children respects their elders and holding responsibility of their future. They represent the future generations as comparisons are made throughout the series of how the new generation are similar to their ancestors.

A fantasy modern slice of life is not complete with its heralds. Throughout the show, other characters of supernatural nature shows up including dog-like heralds, turtles, or playful monkeys. There is a sense of comedy representing some of these characters that contrasts the usual vengeful spirits greatly. In essence, they also represents human characteristics such as Haru’s jealousy, the turtles’ humbleness, or the monkeys’ playfulness that of a child. It’s fun to see it from a more human perspective and how they compare as if they were one of us.

Comedy wise, the series is lighthearted and avoids crude or shock value. There’s virtually no fan service as it avoids the typical beach/onsen episode. Instead, it relies on natural humor with some sarcasm and gags such as Gintaro’s love of oranges. Also surprisingly enough, there is minimal romance that is often played out as a causal sense. Otherwise, most relationships are based on events from the past such as Makoto’s introduction to the series is when she was a young child. She witnessed the first sight of Gintaro that changed her life forever. With clever usage of flashbacks, it’s also easy to feel what the experiences the characters have gone through. It can create mixed responses but surprisingly can be pragmatic. Furthermore, some of these stories sends a message with a tag of morality labeled. Unfortunately for action junkies, there isn’t much intensity or rivalries going on throughout the series. It takes on the more slice of life approach rather than the typical ‘save the world’ trope. As a simple fantasy life story, this is what it should be.

Artwork wise, Gingitsune is easy to see visually. Human characters are designed to look human while heralds are colored with fantasy tones. The shrines are designed as being simple, realistic, and natural. There’s a sense of mystical atmosphere that the shrines also brings out that can make viewers wonder what goes on behind its history. It’s not a magic story but creates that atmosphere of innocence such as Makoto and Haru. The studio Diomedea is involved with the project that has a history involved with supernatural stories such as Nanatsuiro Drops, Squid Girl, and Sola. Here, they do their job with consistency to bring this fictional story to life.

Soundtrack is moderate with only some outstanding features. The OST generally remains the same with its serene tones. The OP song, "tiny lamp" by fhána works well but lacks any catchy moments that captures the essence of the series. There’s also hardly any notable characteristics regarding its ED song. But if we were to discuss voice acting, then Gintaoru’s VA should definitely be one to mention. Shinichiro Miki plays the role of Gintaoru with his talent that represents why he is a prominent voice actor in the seiyu industry. The way his character speaks out often comes with a sophisticated tone that combines elements of sarcasm, pride, and maturity.

I’ll admit, this show is not the type of anime for everyone. If you’re looking forward to a complex action fantasy with plot twists and struggles, then GIngitsune is the wrong show for you. Instead, this show fits more of a fantasy slice of life with dynamic character building based on relationships, past lives, and construction of friendships. Although it lacks a complex love polygon, the parental love that the characters presents is very realistic. The elements of fantasy and realism fused creates a line that blurs together creating a charming story. As relaxing the series can be, there are times when it feels slow paced or simply put…boring. But if we look carefully, it’s easy to tell that Gingitsune is nothing about saving the world or exorcising evil spirits. Not every fantasy story has to be about defeating evil. Gingitsune is about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

To be perfectly honest, I thought at first that this anime would be headed into a great plot development, seeing the whole fox-spirit and shrine maiden theme, until I actually watched through the entire thing. I've seen a lot of people hype about this anime when it was clearly nothing special. Maybe it's just me, but I tend to dislike the whole slice-of-life type of anime. Gingitsune isn't that bad, but clearly nothing special. If you're looking for an anime that's completely calm and if you like the slice-of-life genre then it's worth checking out I suppose.

Story: 4/10
Call me strict, but there was nearly ... zero plot in this anime. From episde 1, up to the final episode, I was still trying to figure out what the plot for this anime was supposed to be. I get it, it's just your typical cultural, slice-of-life anime, but of course you can't keep watching an anime series if there is no interest in the plot and in my opinion, the plot is what matters most. The story didn't start getting interesting until Satoru and Haru joined in, but it started losing it's interest around the last episodes again.

Art: 6/10
The animation was not too bad, but again nothing special, I've seen better. What I liked about it is that the colors were always appealing to the eye and the animation was nice and simple, but nothing that impressive. There weren't any great effects either, but I find that the best part about the artwork in this anime were the backgrounds. Very well done and good job to the concept artists.

Sound: 6/10
Again, the soundtrack was nothing special. I like how they kept the music simple, since it fits in this anime, but then again it didn't have any themes that impressed me and it's not a soundtrack that I'll go back and listen to it. The opening was decent, the ending song was pretty nice though.

Character: 5/10
Another major problem about this anime was absolutely no character development. And when I say absolutely no character development, I mean it. It seemed like they were going to develop Satoru a bit, but they just kinda dumped him after some time. The only character that seemed to have some slight development was Haru. I wanted to learn more about Gintaro though and actually see Makoto, since she's the main character, progress a bit, but it just seemed that she kept getting worse with each episode.

Enjoyment: 5/10
The fact that I was half-watching each episode, especially the ones that Satoru and Haru were not in, probably shows that I didn't really enjoy this anime. There wasn't really something to enjoy after a certain point and the fact that the characters were either unninteresting or that the anime itself wouldn't develop them was a huge turn off for me. There were many things they never finished explaining and of course, they did have time to do that, if only they didn't waste time on matters that the viewers wouldn't care about. Then again, that's what most slice-of-life anime do.

Overall 5.2/10
Don't get me wrong, I might be strict with my ratings, but I only rate anime in this way because there are others who deserve a much better rating. Gingitsune wasn't one of those, for me at least. Don't go assuming that I'm rating it so low because I hate slice-of-life anime, I've watched some others too and they were more interesting than this one, but I've also seen worse too. Again it's probably one of my least favorite genres so if you want, you don't have to listen to my opinion, although I tried keeping it as unbiased as possible. For me, this anime could have been more interesting than the average slice-of-life since it also had the fantasy type to it.

I have downgraded this anime for a few reasons. There are some bright spots, but most of it is not very good in my opinion.

I liked the overall general idea that there are some temple people that can talk to temple gods. I thought that was a pretty cool idea and they probably could have done some interesting story elements with that.

But alas! It is a slice of life and I feel that this anime doesn't really get started. For some slice of life, that is fine. Slice of Life is my favorite genre.

But I felt like this slice of life was more character ... focused and driven. And that was the issue. I thought some of the characters were way to emotional and whiny. It got very annoying and that is why I dropped it. I did my best to use all of my anime logical and just get through it. But at the end of the day, there are so many great series out there.

Everyone, be selfish with your time. Watch what you want, drop what you dont.