Inukami!

Well here's somthing I didn't expect.

When I first saw a screenshot of Inukami, and read the synopsis for the show, I thought to myself "it's just another harem based rom-com". Oh, how wrong I was.

If you don't laugh at this show then you've probably missed the point (or you're not human). No other show will drop the lead character naked in the town square just for looking at women, or let him spend a night in a police cell surrounded by perverts (who believe he is their king I might add). If you're expecting a lot of fanservice then you're watching the wrong show. ... In this show you get MANSERVICE!

The art and sound are of a very high quality, but what really separates this show from others is the characters. The characters are quite simple fantastic (especially the kid who keeps telling his mum he's just seen an elephant - you can figure out what that means yourself).

This show is just SO wrong it becomes right. This is no-holds-barred, gloves off, UN-politically correct humour at it's best. Just make sure you wait half an hour after food before watching it.

Inukami! is a difficult anime for me to write about. On one hand I really loved many aspects of it but on the other there were things I absolutely hated. This show is not for everyone. It features some pretty crude, perverted, and offensive humor but most of the time you can’t help but laugh anyway.

Story wise Inukami isn’t all that special. It is much better towards the latter half of the show and really did a lot to save the series for me. The main problem and the reason I overall don’t rate this show that high is because ... of some of the humor. Don’t get me wrong this show is at its best VERY funny. But a lot of the jokes, mostly in the first half of the series are over used, cruel, and start getting unfunny in a hurry. It wears you down and you find yourself asking is this how someone who claims to love someone treat them? Fortunately they move on from these jokes eventually and get on with the plot and different jokes.

What Inukami! does right is the characters. They are funny, well drawn and acted and are the strength of the show. There are a lot of them, and usually I would say this would be a weakness but because of the way the humor is delivered and the differences in them I couldn’t help but love them all. The two leads Yuuko and Keita will have you laughing and caring about them. However their relationship doesn’t ever really develop the way you would like. Just when they seem to have reached a new level we find ourselves back to the way things were before. They both can show great love and affection for each other at times but then tremendous cruelty five minutes later. The supporting characters embody all the various fetishes you find in harem anime but they are all get fairly well developed, particularly Nadeshiko and Hakee. In addition a number of guest characters appear during the course of the show that are hilarious such as the monks and jail perverts.

Really great music is featured as well, particular from Yuuko voice actress Yui Horie. Her performance and that of Keita's Jun Fukuyama are the highlights of the cast as they really brought out their characters. The animation was a bit inconsistent, I didn’t care for some of the character designs and some of the colors were a bit boring, but there are many great magical battles and smooth action scenes.

Inukami!, in the end, is a mixed bag. There is no doubt the show is at its best hilarious, but at its worst I just wanted to drop it all together. There is also a lot of good action that fans of shounen will enjoy this. There is a lot to love about it but the mean spirited and too often repetitive humor limited my overall enjoyment.

The anime I'll be looking at this week is based on a series of light novels by Arisawa Mamizu, who I've never heard of before this, with an anime adaptation by Seven Arcs... Wait, the studio behind Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha? That's got to be a good sign. This is Inukami.

There is a story, but it only really starts in the last six episodes or so. Everything before that focuses more on setting up the scenario and attempts at humour. The scenario is simple. Our protagonist is Kawahira Keita. He comes from a family that works with Inukami in order to protect the peace ... and seek justice. What an original concept... Wait, no. What's the opposite of original? Oh yes, trite. What a trite concept. I'll talk about the comedy for a bit. Most of it doesn't work all that well. Most of the jokes are quite predictable and play on the concept that Keita being a pervert is funny, or that nudity is funny because... modesty is a thing. Suffice it to say, there aren't many legitimately funny moments. Some of the subversive humour works pretty well but aside from those rare moments it doesn't offer much. I won't go into too much detail about the story since, as stated earlier, it doesn't really get going until towards the end. Which is a problem with the series. If you want to have a comedy, fine. If you want to have a light-hearted story with some dark elements, fine. The issue is that most of the episodes don't tie into the main storyline. You could remove a good eighteen episodes and lose nothing that's needed for the story. If they were going to take this route they should've started introducing actual important elements earlier on instead of just throwing a bunch of characters who showed up earlier in the story focused episodes to try and pretend that they mattered. That being said, I do like that the big bad has an actual reason for toying with his opponents instead of just being too incompetent to finish them when he has the chance. Kudos for that one. The ending is really predictable though, which is kind of to be expected in an anime like this, but it's still kind of annoying. Then there's the romance. The romance in this is not only devoid of chemistry but it's pretty disgusting when you consider both the age difference of several centuries and the fact that it's bestiality. An aspect which is played up for humour on several occasions.

Most of the characters aren't particularly interesting. Part of the problem is that there are a lot of major characters including twelve inukami, three masters, an investigator and three antagonists. The ones we spend the most time with, Keita and Youko, are thoroughly unlikable and stock characters. Keita is basically an identical character to Carrot from Bakuretsu Hunters, a pervert who chases everyone, except the person openly interested in him who supposedly has a heart of gold. Except that Carrot was consistent and Keita will claim not to be interested in, say, the twins in one episode but'll fantasise about and flirt with them in others. Youko is more like Akane from Ranma 1/2. The jealous and possessive love interest who has no personality outside of the guy she's connected to. The minor characters fare a little better and not just because they'd pretty much have to. There's an episode that explores Kayano and Hake's past and makes it look like it was quite interesting. Some of the other secondary characters have potential but they don't get the time to develop it into anything interesting.

The art in this isn't bad, but it is really lazy. Everything from the largely blank backgrounds to the mediocre designs just speaks of a lack of effort. The fight scenes are quite possibly the worst. They tend to be a lot of repeated motions and coloured balls slamming into each other. I'm not really going to complain about the fan-service in this one just because it's pretty equal opportunity with both male and female characters being put into questionable positions. And that bothers me a lot less than an anime that constantly strips its female characters while leaving the men untouched. It just doesn't seem nearly as objectifying.

The voice acting is the best part of the series. They got some pretty big name and talented actors to do the vocals for this. Hayashibara Megumi, who I'm going to mention first even though she has a really small role just because she's awesome, Horie Yue, Canna Nobutoshi, Hayami Show, Mizuki Nana and Nazuka Kaori to name just a few. The music is really good too. Which makes the sound the best part of the series.

The yuri factor is a 2/10. There are a few scenes between Kaoru's Inukami that come off as kind of homo-erotic, but there's no real pattern and they're quick to remind you that they all love Kaoru so huggy muggy much.

My final rating for Inukami is a 3/10. There are a few funny moments and the voice acting and music are great. Aside from that, however, it's a mess of predictable jokes and under-developed characters. If you think that seeing perverts run around is funny you might have fun with it. Otherwise I couldn't recommend it. It's few genuinely funny moments just aren't worth enduring the romance, which is so bad it could've been written by Stephanie Meyer.