Atasha Kawashiri Kodama da yo: Dangerous Lifehacker no Tadareta Seikatsu

Quite possibly the most low quality, low EFFORT anime I have ever had the displeasure of watching. I was not exaggerating in my preliminary review at all. Short anime do NOT get a free pass from me, different run times? Not as much man power as your typical full length seasonal? Big deal. Once again, short anime do NOT get a free pass from me. There have been tons of 2-5 minute anime that ticked a lot of boxes in terms of good qualities, Atasha Kawashiri Kodama Da yo: Dangerous Lifehacker no Tadareta Seikatsu, only managed to tick one, the fricking opening sequence. The show ... runs for 2.5 minutes right? Well, the OP is a catchy tune that runs for 1.5 minutes, leaving only a SINGLE MINUTE for content. And the content is some of the worst in anime today.

The anime revolves around the manga creators day to day life in it's simplest and lowest form, her snacking on fast food and drinking beer. That's pretty much it, her "autobiography". Kodama eating takeaways and passing out at home for 24 stinking episodes. There might be the odd episode here and there where she does something else like taking a walk (!!wow!!), but it's mainly her stuffing her little derp face. The fact that producers gave this the green light absolutely baffles me, it's neither interesting, nor is it funny at all, instead it's very repetitive and tiring watching the same thing over and over again. They even managed to get an excellent seiyuu in Aoi Yuuki, but we only get to hear her speak in a quiet monotone voice, her full range wasted on a character such as Kodama. As a casting choice, not impressed.

Now let's get to the production values, the most laughable production values you will ever hope to see, it's a massive joke. One minute of pathetic slide show "animation" every week, it makes Gokushufudou look the Fate series, the art style itself is unsightly and low effort, the sound is simply Yuuki herself voicing out the effects, seriously, any sort of onomatopoeia, Yuuki has got it covered. Some might say it's charming, I say the creators couldn't be arsed.

About half way through the airing, we even started to get some technical problems with the show! A bizarre sound issue became apparent around episode 13, somebody must have messed up the audio mixing, because comb filtering appeared (two or more identical sounds are mixed together with a slight delay between them), leaving it sounding it was recorded in a fricking closet. This continued for some time as well, unbelievable.

And incredible, that's not even the most pathetic thing about the production. I'll remind you guys all again about the run time, 1.5 minutes of Opening Sequence, 1 minute of terrible slideshow, power point animation. They had the audacity to delay this short series FIVE FRICKING TIMES over the course of 24 episodes. FIVE TIMES. And one of the delays was for three weeks as well! I saw some people saying that Yuuki got covid on the 5th delay, but the raws of the final few episodes were released weeks before that happened, so that's no excuse in my books. Just the most embarrassing release of all time as far as I'm concerned. One person could do this, you have ONE MINUTE of actual content a week to produce, there are NO excuses.

I won't change my score of a 2/10, simply thanks to the OP being an absolute banger, if the OP was even slightly average, this anime would get the lowest marks possible. Overall, this is not worth your time, there are so many better short anime out there, anime that put in the effort, anime that you can see the love go into. There are plenty of interest stacks listing them. This one deserves a skip.

The character Kodama and the visual representation of her philosophy as depicted in this series is one of the more intereseting approaches that I've seen in modern series.

The story and each episode starts of with the opening theme, which I think is one of the key parts of the experience when it comes to the series as a whole and what it represents. In the opening theme we can see how the character (Kodama) starts off her day and does what I would call things that represent her daily routine. This is emphasized in the series as the opening theme plays in every episode ... and it lasts over half of the episode duration. After the "routine" it is time for the "hack" where Kodama is depicted as "breaking from the mold" and you are able to gain glimpse of the world through the lens of her philosophy.

As far as the character goes I'd say that it is one of the key points when it comes to this series. The character Kodama is presented as someone whose philosophy and "routine" when it comes to her daily life have what I would call a visible "conflict of interest". This "conflict" is brought into the light during the "dangerous lifehack" segments of the episodes, while it is also presented that "the routine" doesn't fall apart because of these "dangerous lifehacks". Another way of looking it is that "the routine" is more of a metaphor on how she sees herself as from the eyes of "the society" and "the lifehack" part is more related to her own philosophy and how see sees herself as when she is free from the shackle of "the society".

The art and audiovisual presentation in the series I'd say enhances the "duality" of the series when it comes to "the lifehacks" and "the routine". Visual approach also takes influence from the philosophy of the "character" and "the world" is mainly presented in a relatively abstract manner that I would say plays out nicely when you look at the series as a whole.

I'd say this two segment approach that is utilized in the series is done in very creative manner and the series is filled with small visual cues and metaphors that I would say help to represent the philosophy of the "character" in a relatively abstract but still direct manner that can be understood even if you miss some of the visual cues and metaphors.

Overall if you're looking for something that is able to present a "human experience" in a relatively abstract but still surprisingly relatable manner I'd say this series manages to do that, and leave a good impression on top of that.

The most simple way I could sum up my viewing experience with Atasha Kawashiri is that, at least in the format presented, it has no reason to exist. Every episode starts with a 90 second OP, following by one minute of the actual anime. This might even be an acceptable format, if not for how hideous the show is once you get past a deceptively decent looking intro. As for the content of AtaKawa, every episode is just her daily NEET-esque life of getting drunk, eating junk food, and otherwise being a disgusting slob. That isn't to say even this is unappealing, there are characters ... like Tomoko and Gabriel who are really popular and are similar characters, but there are more to them than there is to Kawashiri. If I had to find something which was supposed to be the "hook" of the show, it's the attempt to present mundane daily life in a humorous way. I chuckled here and there, but a lot of the observational humor fell flat, even aspects I could relate to. I tried to find some of the manga to read online to see if that was funny and it was just a poor adaptation (which it almost certainly is, if even just from an animation standpoint), but alas, I could not.

Circling back to my original thought, there is no reason for this anime to exist in the form it was presented. Throughout the season, there are 24 total minutes of content, so why couldn't the money be found to create a decent one episode special? The world may never know... or care, to be honest.