Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san

Remember that time when your parents, grandparents, sibling, teacher, your best friend, your lover, or someone told you that ‘there’s no such thing as free lunch?’ Tell that to Kuroto Nakano and he may surprise you. It just happens so one day when he comes home after a long day of work and finds a kitsune demi-goddess in his home!

Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san is about the fluffiest anime you can find this year. Literally, Senko’s long smooth tail combined with her gentle personality brings a feeling of easiness. Nakano’s miserable life changes forever after meeting Senko. From the very first episode, I was prepared of ... nothing less than a relaxing slice of life comedy. It’s what makes the manga so charming to read with the amount of daily life adventures…and misadventures. Animated by Dogakobo, this was also the perfect choice for a studio. They’ve been known to be involved with a lot of slice of life content, though recently leaning more into the ‘cute girls doing cute things’ category. This show makes that mold in some ways with an adult main character and demi-goddesses that does more than cute things.

Slice of life, as everyone knows, is not much about a linear plot or complex storytelling. If you’re new to the genre, that’s ok because it’s easy to discover why the genre works so well for this anime. From day one, Senko decides to take care of Kuroto without any form of real payment. It’s essentially free lunch with some added bonus such as Senko’s fluffy tail. Besides that, Nakano can hardly resist the adorable charm of Senko and the being taken care of after a long day. Anyone who works the generic 8-5 pm shifts will know how enduring that can be. What awaits Nakano at home is this adorable little goddess declaring her duties to take care of him. While not being experienced like a housemaid, she is very much devoted to her promise. When Nakano feels down, she tries to cheer him up; often with the aid of her tail if necessary. When he needs advice, Senko becomes his personal life coach. It seems Nakano’s life really turned around with this newfound luck.

Or does it?

As this all sounds like him winning the lottery, it’s not as easy as it seems. Other characters such as the kitsune Shiro and Nakano’s neighbor Yasuko also gets involved in their lives. Contrary to Senko, Shiro treats Nakano more as a servant. On the other hand, Yasuko also gets very curious about Senko. With her otherworldly appearance, she becomes a joke for cosplay. Later in the story, we have the alluring kitsune Yozora entering Nakano’s life and aims to show her seductiveness. But really, there’s not much else to add for its main cast or is it necessary. The anime is aimed to be as relaxing as it can be. Despite the additional elements of drama, this never turns into a moody show with oversaturated melancholy. This may surprise viewers considering the way the synopsis sounds at first. Realistically, Nakano does feel a heavy weight in his life. He works at a company with long grudging hours that puts a stress on his mental health. If you put yourself in his shoes, you’ll understand.

At some point in this anime, I asked myself the real reasons to watch this in the first place. The simple answer is to relax and enjoy the simplicity of slice of life. While there’s some subtle romance elements and minor drama, it always succeeds at what a slice of life show is. Here, we have 12 episodes that ranges from the reality of a stress at work to a relaxing day at the beach. Senko is also way too charming to keep eyes off of despite her inexperience with working with modern technology. However, the overall vibe of the show may occasionally rub viewers in the wrong way. There’s the age difference and it doesn’t help that Nakano gets mistaken for a pervert early on. Senko herself is also a target for hilarious borderline fan service moments. The show aims to bring comedy but there’s definitely some hidden innuendo when Nakano buries himself into Senko’s fluffy tail. I mean, the show is trying to be fluffy, right….?

Finally, I do want to applaud the voice acting for such a small yet talented cast. Senko’s dialect contains an accent of formal Japanese and ancient speech tone. With her personality, it makes her sound very distinctive compared to other characters. We also shouldn’t forget the colorful and vibrant upbeat theme songs performed by the voice actors themselves. The fact is, there’s a lot of talent that went into this show beyond just the adorable character designs and charm.

I love a classic slice of life anime these days and Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san managed to be just that. The author knew what they were aiming for from the start and this anime turned out to be a terrific picture. It uses supernatural characters to blend in with real life segments to bring about this charming creative work. Now, maybe there is such a thing as free lunch.

Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san is not your typical slice of life. The reason for that is because of the focus of the show. This anime tells about a demigod fox named Senko who one day decided to take care of our poor and miserable Nakano who's exhausted from work. That's it, there is hardly anything more of it. What makes it not typical is that the focus is on self-insert.

This show tries to makes Nakano simple so it is easy to self-insert ourselves. This is, of course, to make you fantasize how lovely it is to have someone like Senko take care of you. ... This point is further reinforced by the extra parts post-ending song. This part is the real self-insert with the first-person perspective. It is fanservice, but not the lewd kind of fanservice. And as bonus info, this anime likes to present about fluffy tails of Senko and the other demigod foxes.

The fact that this is anime focuses on self-insert is not the bad thing about it. It does it, and it does it pretty well. The bad thing about this anime is the lack of depth. Nakano and Senko can be very shallow characters. There are not much to see from them as the focus is not on the characters. Side characters get it worse, as they get even less screentime than the main characters.

I won't deny that the art and sound are great to help you feel relaxed while Senko does whatever different things she does each episode. The animations are not a spectacle, but I argue that sound and music usage is more important at keeping the viewers relaxed.

And so, here is how Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san stands. This anime is a great watch to help you relax by self-inserting yourself into the position of Nakano. Enjoy Senko pampering you with her fluffy tail. However, it has hardly anything to offer in terms of character depth. Characters and their interactions won't be memorable. Just focus on Senko taking care of you and It will be good to enjoy.

The manga's artistic style is fine, but if I had to choose between the manga and the anime...
I would pick the anime's style over the manga on the account of how much cleaner it looks.

Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san is NOT a manga or anime I would recommend.
Why? Because there is an extremely problematic element regarding Nakano and Senko's relationship and (by extension) most of the relationships in this story with exception to maybe his friendship with Koenji: pedophilia.

You can tell me over and over again until you're blue in the face that Senko is 800+ years old and when it comes to the culture ... of the gods, pedophilia might not be an issue, but that doesn't change the fact that the creators of this story thought it was a good idea to have the waifu in this look like a LITTLE GIRL. In fact, it's admitted in both the manga and the anime (when they first meet Koenji) that (as far as Senko goes) she's BOTH the WIFE AND THE MOTHER.

If I didn't know any better, I'd strongly believe that this was a male's fantasy story to an extent (which I can believe if you look at the artist's notes): coming home from a hard day at work and bringing in the bread to his wife who's not only beautiful and (dangerously) young, but is pampering him to his heart's content. With as young as Senko LOOKS (NOT IS), there is a disturbing implication: a child bride/wife.

Add the fact that all of the girls are young in some degree with the fact on how (at least two) of them dress, and it's only adding fuel to the fire. Sure, I've seen it common in stories from Japan to use sexiness as a joke, but when girls under the age of consent are seducing older men (in this case, Nakano) for any reason, you've got a problem.

I used to love this series for the hurt/comfort element and how sweet it was Senko just wanting to do something nice: on reflection, hurt/comfort one of my favorite genres. However, the underlying pedophilia ruins this series for me, and that sucks because Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san could've been something better.