~Story~
The premise of Kure-nai is simple: 16-year-old Kurenai Shinkorou, a master martial artist and professional mediator, yearning for better paid jobs, receives a request from his boss Benika to protect the young 7-year-old girl Murasaki Kuhoin. Mystery surrounds both the girl and protagonist himself, which possibly ensures a great story. This sadly not the case, as it jumps from action to a prolonged slice of life setting, than to plunge once again in the action scene; which disturbs the overall continuity of the anime.
As stated earlier, the slice of life moments in this show were well executed, which in this case was presenting somewhat realistic character relationships in addition to satisfying crafted everyday life events. Viewers observe how these two main characters interact between themselves and their environment, as well providing some background stories for the little Murasaki. These interactions and events can be amusing at times, which is enhances the atmosphere the anime is trying to portray. However, there is often also typical school type situations which viewers are used to see in romcom school comedies, which can be a drawback.
Now as mentioned earlier, Kurenai needs to protect the girl from her powerful family, yet there is a problem to this: the viewer isn't provided with enough knowledge of the family to understand the reason why she even needs to be protected, even after it is revealed nearing the conclusion. Consequently audiences never or hardly ever feel any kind of tension whatsoever whenever something happens to her, be it wandering out on her own, or going out with the protagonist.
This brings me to the drama aspect of Kure-nai, which was poorly executed and difficult to take seriously due to various reasons: first of all, the fact that a teenager is protecting a little girl from a very rich and powerful family while attending school normally and leaving the kid alone is a huge flaw already. Other issue was the continuity of the show, that either totally focused upon action/drama or just switched to normal everyday life events. Then there is the fact that the protagonist himself is a pretty useless bodyguard, which raises the question why he even was assigned this job. Finally, the motives and characters themselves were shallow, but I will treat this topic below.
~Characters~
There is a handful of characters present in Kure-nai, naturally being Murasaki and Kurenai of utmost importance. Murasaki is a young, talented martial artist and naturally being young makes it difficult for him to live on his own, consequently working as a professional mediator. His past is explored upon very superficially, and the motives on why he has this particular job are weak as well. Then there is Kurenai, a girl from a rich family with elitist behaviour; she undergoes the most character development and fleshing out of the whole cast, though her sudden change in lifestyle: from a rich environment to a dirty little room.
The secondary characters are of importance as well, yet these undergo near to zero character development or fleshing out. This jars the narrative of the anime, as they are one-dimensional characters with very lacking motives, which seems to make them out as simple plot devices. The friends of the protagonist, as well as his boss felt redundant in the anime.
~Animation and sound~
The animation of Kure-nai was well executed, as times very well done with fluid character motions, as well as the environment. This could not be said about the background, which was well drawn in the beginning, towards the end being of lesser quality, especially when comparing it with the character's detail. Character design were slightly different from what anime viewers are used to, but was rather lackluster in fact, being the defining feature their hairstyles, as faces of the main cast were basically the same. This was however a small drawback.
The voice actors performed their role well, matching with each character voices, though at times emotional states of these didn't come over too well. The soundtrack used was nothing outstanding, yet fulfilled its purpose in creating the different atmospheres it was trying to relay to the viewer.
~Enjoyment~
What started as an interesting and amusing anime, changed for the worse as it progressed through a badly handled blending between slice of life and action; the character were no great help either in providing a somewhat realistic story, yet what "saved" it from being a disaster were the slice of life moments present its duration. I personally think this would have worked much better if it focused on the slice of life aspect. In addition, the protagonist should have been an adult rather than a teenager, as this makes it very difficult to take the series seriously, in addition to the additional question that arises as how a simple teenager could be taking care of a 7-year-old girl without arising suspicion.
So do I recommend this anime? Honestly I don't; I have grown to dislike the school-type of setting more and more, which may have influenced significantly. Naturally, for newcomers to the anime scene all this issues wouldn't bother that much, yet for the more seasoned viewers, I would say stay away from it.
Thank you for reading.
