Kobato.

If you like to cry and feel an open heart this is the anime to watch.

The anime itself is quite beautiful, with the premise of an innocent girl doing her best out of the depths of her heart to help mend broken hearts. It's itself a very relaxing anime to watch yet has strong emotional peaks that can bring tears to the eyes.

The one issue I had with this anime is that I think the premise of the plot could have been executed better. The beginning starts really strong and sets the expectation for it to be something very grand but its execution doesn't ... live up to the energy shown at the beginning of the story. However, despite this, the strong beginning and ending really bring things together in a way that is extremely satisfying and healing for the heart and soul. So despite it having the possibility to have had the plot executed better (with more depth and expansion), it was still quite satisfying and immersive because of the lovable characters, the way it helps one cultivate compassion for them, and their contributions to the main plot.

This anime is quite a satisfying one, amazing music, a heart-healing/opening plot, lovable characters, and enough mystery to the plot to keep one wondering (though that mystery could have been expanded a bit on). Overall though, I give it a 9/10 due to how emotionally impactful this anime was, my face was literally covered in tears multiple times through the story and the ending left my heart open and expanded. For those of you who are emotionally centered people, this is a must-watch anime forsure.

Kobato in and of itself is a pretty enjoyable, innocent anime if you watch episodes 1 up to 22. There is world building and buildup to a greater reveal in the background, whereas small stories about people and their problems of connecting with others are in the foreground. With her innocent and kind of clueless earnestness, Kobato manages to get through to all of them. It's calm, the pacing is relaxed, there are a lot of nice recurring characters as well as the usual Clamp cameos. It's a nice overall package.

Now the final two episodes however are a different beast. Kobato's wish that has been ... eluded to but has never been explained in more detail than "there is a place she wishes to go" gets revealed and it's actually pretty disappointing. There is no buildup to any of it, and there is a certain character relationship that develops gradually and fairly nicely, until in episode 23 the director decided to tell us that it was totally much further than the show ever presented and it feels unearned. The nicely weaved in details about the history of characters like Ioryogi and Ginsei are entirely ignored. It feels like the decision on how to end the show was made far too late.

Going into a little more detail, and spoilers from here on out - so proceed at your own risk! - let's get into the relationship between Kobato and Fujimoto.

At no point in the show does it feel anywhere near romantic. It progresses naturally, with stoic and efficient Fujimoto being annoyed with Kobatos childish antics at first, only to realize how her childlike innocence instills hope and has the power to mend relationships of those around her. He grows to care for her and to enjoy himself more. It's kind of understandable that Kobato grows to like him romantically, but not the other way around. Until the very end of episode 22, her keeps her at a distance, but by the beginning tof episode 23, we suddenly see a flashback of someone resembling him and someone resembling Kobato in what's clearly a setting different from the one of the show? It feels like the moment Kobato is gone from the apartment, Fujimoto just summons love for her out of nowhere and tries everything to get her back. Admittedly, he never says "I love you" or something like it, but it's still a huge jump with what he was comfortable expressing towards her beforehand.
And the whole "reincarnated previous lovers bound by fate" thing was just lame, dumb and comes out of nowhere. It feels like a shorthand for a development that was supposed to have been there, but ended up being cut out in favor of episodes that while not really considered filler, do have self-contained stories that don't amount to much.
Likewise the moment in episode 24, when all of a sudden, the reincarnated Kobato just gains her "memories" back through magic and that's the end of the show. It was really, really disappointing and kind of turned other exciting developments in the show sour for me since they didn't amount to anything and felt a little pointless in retrospect.

Overall, the show was enjoyable enough. If you like your calm, relaxing (if not quite Iyashikei) shows you'll enjoy this one, but don't expect the background details to amount to anything.

Expectation: Protagonist magically heals broken hearts from lots of emotional high school romances, divorces, and mild trauma in each episode that ends on happy notes. Alright, sounds like just the right blend of bittersweet but warm and empowering, I'm in.

Reality: Ditzy girl with 0 superpowers devotes the majority of her life to a failing kindergarten with predictable children. "Helps" people by forcing her way into the daily lives of neighbourhood's residents, and is rewarded when they smile.

- I was initially surprised that I hadn't heard of this anime before. The description sounded appealing for a sensitive sh*t like me, and I generally appreciate ... protagonists who try to make others' lives better, because I too, like helping people in real life. Now I know why it was never popular, and hope it stays that way. It is NOTHING like the description said; the description is a LIE.

- Out of 24 episodes, we can say maybe 2 of them were actually 'broken heart' related stories. Literally everyone else was under 10 years old and 'healing their hearts' could be as simple as telling someone they're awesome that day. That's. It. There is no deeper meaning, no tragic backstory, and very little focus on young adults or anything adult, really. This show is a show about KINDERGARTENERS. PRESCHOOLERS. TODDLERS.

- And I love toddlers. e.g. Gakuen Babysitters is one of my favourite 'feel-good' series to watch. But ... this isn't one of them. Where Gakuen Babysitters shows realistic sides (good AND bad) behaviour from babies and their families... these toddlers were one-dimensional. They had as much depth as a cardboard tree cut out. Their voices sound the same, they generally do what they're told, they're unrealistically peppy all the time; they're basically a lifeless NPC army.

- Protagonist has too many aspirations, and there's too many genres and elements stuffed into one series. You're never sure if you're watching a magical fantasy anime, supernatural spirits, working part time job lifestyles, or fake Japanese mafia. They somehow cram all of that into one episiode, so nothing makes sense.

- They introduce new characters (e.g. Kohaku) and then you only see them again when the protagonist needs their help DESPERATELY. It's inconsistent and very confusing. And the characters. Ohmygod, the side characters. I wish I could say the supporting characters saved this show - they didn't. While we do get VERY good looking male characters that were totally my type and why I even bothered watching at all (Doumoto is best boy) ... we don't really learn much about any of them, male or female. They had a lot of potential, but it seemed like the writers were content with focusing on the idiotic protagonist and her "love interest who is not a love interest".

- Re: love interest
God, that guy is a piece of WORK. He is an arrogant jerk to everyone. He works 3 jobs at any time, taking out his unresolved childhood trauma on strangers, and never smiles. But of course, because of how poorly this anime is written, he's somehow The World's Most Eligible Bachelor to our protagonist. She sees him as a 'project' to take on, similar to women who want to change womanizers they've fallen in love with. No. Do not. Stop. Ladies, you know this kind of story never ends well. You can't change someone who doesn't want to change on their own! But this anime will tell you that is exactly possible, and ONE WOMAN can change the world. The way the world revolves around the protagonist perfectly, they could've showed her ending world hunger and achieve world peace, and it would be a plausible storyline.

I am actually really bummed about this part. Like I sincerely hope that this anime did not influence viewers too much and encourage females to chase after men who are abusive towards them. While the efforts to improve someone's life are commendable, there are so many other people who will appreciate the love, energy, effort, and support given out. 'Projects' could benefit more from professional psychotherapy than years of well-meaning do-gooders who don't address the root source of trauma, neglect, abandonment etc.

- The love interest's character growth improves... by the end of the anime. Same thing with the other side characters including "Ioryogi." I actually found the 'talking plush toy animal' gag very annoying after 2 episodes. Especially because they employed slapstick humor throughout the series, breathing fireballs and other 'comic relief' scenes that came off as cringy to me. I don't think I could reasonably tolerate this much slapstick humor unless I was 12 years old again. He could've been an intelligent bodyguard dog of sorts, but no, they had him as a menacing toy that yelled every. five. seconds. It wasn't funny to me.

- Did I mention that the kindergarten the protagonist is obsessed with is in unexplained debt? Throughout the series, we know that the land(?) the school sits on is valuable, and the teacher owes money. But why she owes money, how the debt even started, isn't explained until Episode 22+, and even then, it's very vague. Like two sentences. It's incredibly frustrating to watch, and felt like the writers created fake drama so the story would have some plot. Huge waste of time.

- Lastly. The stream I watched this on translated the candy representing hearts into 'confetti,' which was mildly offensive. I'm pretty sure the correct translation should be Konpeitō (金平糖, コンペイトー), a standard in Japanese sweets and known globally...

- The graphics were also terrible (though I'm not sure if this was because of the streaming platform), only 360p available, so it felt like I was watching a series from 2005 and not 2009, when it was supposed to have aired. Other graphic / artist rant - Kobato's clothes are faded pastel tones at all times... but they're not done well. There's a lot of cream yellow, maroon, light green or light pink. I didn't really like any of her outfits, they felt like a very weird clash of 'Lolita meets Mori girl' fashion. There's so many ways and colors to do that well, and this fell flat. Hurt the eyes.

In conclusion:
To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I'm just utterly relieved it's over. I wanted to drop this series many, many, times, but the social pressure of people on MAL generally finishing their series kept me going. I didn't understand the word 'Pollyanna' and thought it was Americans misunderstanding optimistic people. No. If I only had one word to describe the whole series, it would be that: Pollyanna. Now I know the perfect definition of it, embodied in Kobato, and why it's unattractive.

If you still want to watch this anime.
Nothing happens from episode 1 - 12. That's right. You can completely skip the first half and literally won't miss anything.