Somali to Mori no Kamisama

Somali and the Forest Spirit is a show that takes a familiar premise and executes it in a familiar (and slightly uninspired) way. The formula of an emotionally distant person being thrust into the role of father-figure and learning to adapt along the way can be an emotionally gripping one, if it’s told with care. Somali and the Forest Spirit adds a ticking-clock element and fantastical world to create a nice inoffensive story about parenthood.

To begin with positives, the art style of this show is beautiful. Each environment has a sort of watercolor aesthetic to it, making for rich backgrounds that compliment the wonderful character ... designs. While the animation is rarely impressive, it gets the job done without common mistakes—like characters being off-model. On all technical fronts, this show is solid.

The problems lie with the structure of the story. We’re introduced to our two main characters, and immediately there is an inseparable, unbreakable bond between Somali and the forest golem. Any real child would be immediately terrified of this scary skull-faced monster, but not Somali. The forest golem at least realistically takes some time to warm up to Somali, but the growth of the relationship is presented in one flashback in one episode towards the end of the show. In a well-told version of this story, Somali and the golem would get off to a rocky start, but over time grow to love each other, and we as the audience would be shown this progression.

Our two main characters are also fairly flat. Somali has one personality trait: she’s a genki kid. The forest golem has one personality trait: he’s a stoic automaton—even his face is deliberately designed to be expressionless. It’s very difficult to buy into the depth of their relationship when the characters themselves are so simple. Maybe in future installations of this series their relationship and personalities will be explored, but since the first season of this show is all that’s complete, we have to judge it as a standalone work.

Overall, your enjoyment of this show will depend on how much you’re able to buy into Somali and the golem’s father-daughter relationship. If the show manages to grab your heartstrings in the first few episodes, it’ll be a win for you. Otherwise, consider it safe to skip.

Frankly I watched this show, because the opening song was so perfect. The staccato notes perfectly encapsulate the childlike wonder, and the 2 main characters' whole backstory and emotional connection is conveyed. And lets be real, the art is gorgeous. I have been perfectly primed to feel that gentle sense of wonder and exploration.

Unfortunately, the show fails to deliver this, and its failures pile upon themselves making the show worse and worse as it progresses.

I have 3 big problems with Somali to Mori no Kamisama:
1) The premise of the show is supposed to be machine-dad-learns-to-have-feelings, but instead we get the ... Status-quo-is-god trope.
2) The characters are flat, inconsistent, and solely exist to push forward the next scene.
3) I haven't seen this much unfocused, unnecessary, unprovoked exposition dumping EVER.

Character growth doesn't exist. What little we get is cute in the moment but is immediately forgotten next episode. The premise of the show is that the golem dad is effectively an unfeeling machine, but from the very beginning of the first episode he has shown how deeply he cares for Somali. So much for gradual growth, instead we just get a guy in denial who has to relearn the same emotional truths every arc.

Somali does not make this better. Frankly an optimistically adventurous character like her, surrounded by a world that actively wants her dead, just doesn't make sense. Somali just continues to ignore all safety advice from her dad, and blithely wander into trouble. Once one of the many iterations of villains (who try to KILL her) strike, she immediately forgives and forgets. This show seems to believe children have emotional short term memory loss.
Somali is nothing more than a prop for other characters to lean on, but this merely emphasizes the lack of other characters.

Within the first 2 episodes, almost half the alotted time is random exposition. The characters explaining why demon world came to be have no reason to explain this, no audience that wants it explained to them, and WORST OF ALL explain the world in a boring and incoherent way. Good world building should be like the intro song: I learned everything i needed to know about the premise of the main relationship just from watching, and moreover i enjoyed it. You'd think that after the first 2 episodes, they'd have dumped all the exposition they needed and could get a move on, but it just never stops.

From a shallow book-cover/trailer review, this show has all the elements it needs to get you hyped. A discerning viewer will quickly find themselves bored and looking to skip forward to the good parts, but will never find them.

Somali to Mori no Kamisama - Somali and The Forest Spirit.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THE CHARACTER SECTION.

If, by any means you're reading this and haven't seen the anime yet, here's my conclusion: it is cute, it is beautiful, definitely, so if that's what you like, serve yourself, is shows plenty of cute and a cute father-daughter relationship, but you shouldn't expect much more than that.

This is a review from someone who didn't enjoy nor like much of this show, therefore, expect a grain of salt.

Story (6)
In a fantasy world, we follow the story of a child and a father, well, that might be a ... good dynamic, right? And it is. If only it could be backed up by good writing.

Somali is a human girl on a world full of humanoid animals/beasts called the Grotesque, who happen to eat humans. Somali escapes them and comes across a Golem, a guardian of the forest, that decides to help her. They depart on a journey to reunite Somali, properly disguised, with her own species.

Art (9)
The art is one of the selling points of this series, it is unique and feels good.
It works well to the world building, every new place is different, carries it's beauty and it's danger, which makes you look forward to the journey.
Oh, if only this could be backed up by good writing.

Sound (7)
Believe me I am not the person who can talk about sound, but I can discern between extremelly good or extremelly bad. This show's sound was neither, hence the 7, it did it's work.

Character (9)
The two main characters are the best we get, and they're pretty good at first glance.

-The father-
The Golem is by far the most interesting one, being basically a force of nature with the mission to guard a forest, who acts as logically as possible and seems to have no emotion nor the ability to understand it. He's the one who grows. He is the force that keeps this anime going till the last episode, you'll love him.

-The daughter-
Somali is also interesting, a human child who somehow escaped the Grotesque and came across a Golem that decided he would help her.
At first, Somali does the job of a child pretty well, being cute and not being annoying, and, more importantly, she loves her (new) father, the Golem.

All is fine until the second half of the series, Somali never grows as a character, "but she's a child", well, children do learn, Somali doesn't.
Somali faces a lot of challenges throughout the story, at times, showing of her childish behavior at it's best, other times, after facing a bad time, she seems like a grown up and fully developed character, which isn't the case.

-The sidecharacters-
As the main characters travel, they make friends along the way, face some danger and depart.
The supporting cast is not bad, but they feel a lot like they're disposable and too bland.

Enjoyment (6)

And here's the problem, FOR ME. The father and daughter's journey can be enough for many people, it wasn't for me.
Every other episode seems almost pointless, to the point of boredon since it's either an episode just for the cute scenes or for a danger as unpaupable, bland and cheap as possible.

Overall (6)

One of the big points of this shows should be, and it is for most people, the world building. I disagree. All we know at the start is that this is a fantasy world where human beings have been eaten by the Grotesque, so Somali is in constant danger. Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong, however, is that we continue to see beautiful places and the daily life of the Grotesque and the main characters... repeatedly, with little to no change, and for me that doesn't make for a good world building.

The show focuses on the relationship of both main characters, from episode one Somali shows to be attached enough to her new father, there isn't much room for growth (the Golem is the only one that grows).

That's going to be all, I won't tackle all of it, and I doubt I would be capable of doing so. My opinion was stated at the begging of this review. I had high expectations for this show, my overall is 6/10.

This anime was alright, I guess.

The artwork was really nice. The scenery was especially beautiful, and the places the characters went to were interesting and memorable. There were lots of different creatures and plants, and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. The music wasn't too bad either. It suited the show well, and it was relatively catchy.

The story left me unsatisfied. It was fine, but..it could have been much better. The characters were fine too, but a lot was left unexplained. A lot of characters were introduced, but then dropped, so it made me feel detached from them.

Overall, it was just "meh". Unless you ... really like the art style, your time is probably better spent watching something else.

So, this anime follows Somali, a little girl who finds herself in a forest and is taken in by the forest's guardian, who is a golem. Consequently, the Golem takes Somali on a journey in search of other humans and in the process discovers what it is to have a heart and emotions. The Golem takes care of Somali as a father and the two develop a touching relationship.The world of Somali to Mori is one in which humans are almost extinct and they are also prey to the other spicies that occupy the world. Due to this, Somali's journey with the Golem is fraught ... with danger and her identity as a human has to be kept a secret.

So, how well does the anime do? To be honest, I found the pacing to be lacking and I didn't enjoy the show for the longest time. This is partly because the plot was straightforward, which can be good sometimes, but in this case was pretty boring as the other elements didn't match up.

For instance, a show like Amaama to Inazuma also has a weak plot but gets by on the strength of Tsumugi's sweetness and her force of character was enough to make the show decent. However, this was not the case with this show and while I quite liked both the Golem and Somali, it wasn't enough to make their story intriguing.

Furthermore, the world wasn't as interesting to me as each town kinda felt the same. This is in contrast to a show like Kino no Tabi in which the protagonist also traveled around a lot, while that show had different towns and villages with odd quirks that made them so interesting, this show didn't give me enough of that. With that said, Somali to Mori shines in its themes of parenthood and hatred. The conflict between humans and other creatures and the cycle of hate it created was well represented and it taught some very poignant lessons on hate, the causes of it, and the destructiveness it brings. I also liked the animation and art. Also, the character development was impressive and the last few episodes were quite emotional. In conclusion, this wasn't that great a show, but its treatment of its themes was impressive and for that reason it will certainly be memorable. Should you watch it? Only if you really enjoy slice of life and cute depictions of parents and children.

This anime is heartwarming, endearing, engrossing, but paced far too slow.

The first three episodes were a snoozefest and utterly predictable. It satisfies every daddy-daughter trope you could find in the trope dictionary.

There was a little more excitement in episode 4, but not much. I'm not sure if I'll finish watching this series. They're going to have to surprise me with some highly-unpredictable twist, or I'll die of boredom.

That said, the characters and world just suck you in, so if you're into good feeeeeelz at a languid pace with little challenge, conflict, or suspense, this is probably perfect for you.

UPDATE: Just finished episode 5. Finally some ... conflict and suspense! But pacing is still too slow. My scores remain unchanged.

I think there is a lot in this anime that I can just chalk up as not for me. I enjoyed the story and how Somali and the Golem develop their relationship over time and is a heart-warming father-daughter relationship. I was crying a little bit by the end, and there could have been more tears if they changed it to another direction. To me this seems like Studio Ghibli-lite but I just wasn't getting into the world in the way that other people seem to. Ghibli movies feel alive and this just feels flat. Nice colors and background artwork at the very least. Also ... for a show that kept me at an arms distance because of how twee it is, it was weird when it went full into violence and body horror with the episodes in the middle about the feathered couple. It's very nice and sweet, but has some other parts about it that don't draw me in.