Kobato.

An angry stuffed animal and the charming airheaded girl, Kobato, arrive on a playground through an otherworldly dimension. Their mission is for the girl to heal the hearts of others, vague as that may seem, and that she has a finite amount of time to facilitate these results. If Kobato cannot heal enough hearts by the end of 4 seasons, then her wish will not come true.

Thematically, this is a cutesy comedy-drama with supernatural elements that is adjacent to the slice-of-life genre, but the anime has a tad too much intrigue and heartstring-pulling throughout the total runtime to qualify it as a proper slice-of-life. Kobato ... herself is a blank slate of a character with a default factory setting of "Hopelessly Optimistic", and it is her naivete and radiant positivity that makes this a compelling show to watch, as she stumbles and trips merrily through all of everyone else's problems. Ms. Hanazawa did a lovely job breathing life into this character as the voice actress.

The setting is a little messy with its elements and side-story progressions, as some of these get glossed over, serve no great narrative role beyond "being there", creating momentary adversity, or get stoked just as a fire early-on and then are not touched again until much later, after the viewer investment in that particular plot point has waned substantially. Much like the main character, the anime is a bit carefree with how it handles and resolves some of its own narrative tools - sometimes for the better, other times to no great effect. The writing lends itself to silliness and humor, but it will try to pull the rug out from under you from time to time with moments of sadness as it touches on those little things in life that most of us take for granted until we stop and really think about them.

The animation is good throughout the show, Kobato and her stuffed companion are delightfully expressive. The musical scoring is similarly good, and makes the tone for most of the scenes, be they frivolous or serious.

I recommend Kobato. to anyone looking for a good comedy-drama. The anime does not fixate on any one element for too long; when it hits you with the heavy, you can look forward to the light. When it's a little too light, there will be some dark clouds on the horizon - and last I heard, even those have a silver lining.

This is my first Clamp series (aside from Code Geass). Yes, I'm a neophyte when it comes to this particular corner of the anime world, and regardless of what else I say, I am interested in seeing more series from Clamp, though not because of the various cameos in this series. Those were honestly a little distracting.

And I'm not entering into this one with a negative attitude towards it. Sure, it's a little saccharine, but that's kind of the point. A young woman appears suddenly in a town with a talking, fire-breathing stuffed animal with the chief goal of mending peoples' broken hearts. If that's ... not a premise for a saccharine show, I don't know what is. So when people start inviting this random stranger into their homes and preschools, you just kind of roll with it. That's the kind of show you're watching. It's not meant to be strongly realistic.

That's the vibe I rode through much of the series and I genuinely had a good time with it. The set-up of Kobato meets and helps a new person in the town felt like a great way to build out the world, including some very touching stories about lost love and letting things go, in particular. I only wish we'd gotten to see more instances of this, or at least gotten to see how her many interactions changed the town around her - honestly, just a few SoL moments of her walking down the street and running into people who know her by name after walking in a stranger would have helped establish the depth and breadth of connections she was making beyond the small scope we actually see during the series.

But therein lies the problem: I think this is the best stuff in the series. The throughline stories involving a moneylender trying to tear down the school, Sayaka's relationship with her estranged husband, Fujimoto's background and, most especially, Kobato's entire reason for being here along with Ioryogi just don't work nearly as well.

To start, the series strings along watchers with a lot of its central mysteries. It's not necessarily a problem to have big reveals towards the end of a series, but it does mean that we can't really interact with a characters' past or their aspirations. We're told from the start that Kobato wants to go... somewhere. It's not clear where for a very long time, so it's hard to get behind her desire, which is the central drive of the series. It's just too vague to get invested, and when things are finally revealed, I'm usually left with more questions than answers. What seemed clear often was revealed to be far less so, and character motivations make less sense when considering the answers we are given.

But it's not just the mysteries that bother me. Even when revelations come sooner and characters linger in the story, they shift from apparent threat to background noise back to threat and finally to... pillar of support? There are opportunities to both establish and build on relationships that are missed, turning much of what happens into an arc that takes such sudden turns that it gave me whiplash. It's not like there were no breadcrumbs leading up to these moments, but they made me question a lot of how characters behaved and why for much of the series.

And then there's the relationships. Leaving aside issues of how these narratives resolved, I didn't find that the story did much to invest me in any of the romances. If anything, it made it actively more difficult to root for the pairings it aimed to establish. I'm not going to spoil any given relationship, but the show actively rejects some of the more obvious chemistries it establishes in favor of something that feels forced and contrived to happen by the plot itself. Another relationship is both built on an untold amount of time together and marred by strife, but since one of the characters hardly shows up after they apparently reconcile, we hardly get to appreciate seeing it mended. For a show about mending broken hearts, it was disappointing to see it falter with its longer-running examples.

Finally, there's the ending. I know I've vaguely alluded to some of what's there, but as a whole, it just left me wanting. There were elements that felt like they were just there to leave us on a certain note, and the show didn't seem to care how we got there. Sure, it was once again that saccharine sweetness, but it felt like we were duty-bound to end up there rather than seeing it build more organically.

The show is still a good time when it just sits with these characters and offers moments for Kobato to be a real force for good. It's just a shame they're baked into a story that left me scratching my head or frustrated so often.

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.