*** Story ***
Let's start right with the elephant in the room. "Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san" stars a furry harem, and it’s best loli Senko and the MC Nakano have a lot of intimate physical contact situations. This includes bathing and back scrubbing, ear cleaning, back massage with bare feet, hair cutting, and they share a bed of course. This intimacy and it's depression-breaking effect on MC are not only central to the story, they are the story. Then there is that tail touching trope, and the orgasmic sounds it triggers in Senko. It's not even a hidden metaphor for sex, it's just a metaphor for it. Like Nakano himself concludes the bathing episode: "I did a lot of fluffy-fluffing that night. Thank you, Senko!". You are welcome, this fantasy is a little weird but probably PG-13.
So undercurrent sexual tension is present in spades, and the resulting sitcom is at the heart of the show's comedy. The genius of the narrative is that this is never defiled by mundane sexualized fan service. The story teases the audience along a fine line without ever crossing it, even in the bare skin episodes. Probably much to the delight of doujinshi artists, who get a pure A-tier loli to build on in Senko. Studio Doga Kobo is very aware of the situation. Self-parody scenes of a police raid (E01, 6:35m) and multiple pedo-bear references (E03, 9:02m and 11:12m) make this abundantly clear.
The complete story could be seen as a well executed wish-fulfillment fantasy with moe and fetish elements. Many males, not only in Japan, will consider the titular cute loli elder with her magic powers, housewifiness, perfect traditional manners, a sprinkle of innocent sexual attraction, and foremost a planet-sized positive vibrancy the apex of womanhood. The evil genius is to accept and never question the fact MC is exploited and burnt-out in his job. Rather than changing this, as it happens in Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, he's sent a peak-kawaii foxy lady from heaven to sooth the pain. Why remove causes when you can deal with the symptoms in such an adorable way?
Overall Senko-san is a one kitsune personality show, the remaining cast, even the MC, are accessories to produce slice-of-life plot for her. And to be honest, I could watch her doing cute things for hours. In this aspect, the show completely succeeds. Excursions into slapstick comedy, like in the vacuum cleaner episode, and the submissive routine pampering are less entertaining in my book. The penultimate episode deserves a special place in my heart, because of the amazing change in tone and direction quality. Senko's party, her misunderstood good-bye speech, and the lone walk into the rain hit poetic melancholy notes beyond simple tearjerking. (6/10)
*** Animation ***
The center of gravity in "Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san" animation are the fox-goddess' ears. The further apart an object is from them, the lower the animation quality. Even alleged mains like Nakano are no exception from this rule. Senkos elaborate design with big, expressive golden eyes, her detailed shrine maiden's hakama outfit, and most importantly the fluffy head and tail get the extra pen-stroke, and that's fine with me. The overall animation excluding her is just average, if not slightly below. Cost-saving techniques such as low-detail still backgrounds, zooms into stills, simplified faces, mouth moving only dialog animation and structure-less clothing are highly visible. The animation is not fully fluent all the time, often falling back to extended still montages.
Despite all that, the artwork's style resonates with a “made with love and passion” feeling in me. Summing this mixed results up, there is an overall average quality (4/10).
*** Sound ***
The show has a really catchy OP and an above average ED. Sound effects such as the clapping of Senko's wooden shoes or effects such as a chime when she perks her ears are appropriately used. There are recurring mini-themes of functional music for moods, persons and situations, many of them done using traditional Japanese instruments. This of course supports Senko-san's told-fashioned Japanese themes very well. Overall, the sound is solidly average, (5/10).
*** Characters ***
There are five characters in the cast. Beside the titular kitsune Senko, the second main (in name only) is self-insert MC Nakano, a burnt-out software engineer. Then there is the harem consisting of spoiled brat kitsune loli Shiro, her and Senko's voluptuous boss and femme fatale Sora, and the slightly maniac manga-drawing neighbor Yasuko Kouenji.
Senko is an very well designed character combining traditional Japanese values, unlimited vibrancy, and a smart polite humbleness. With up to eleven cuteness features such as fang, cat mouth, light clumsiness, and the sweetest pouting of the season you just can't avoid falling in love. There's some but not much character development with her, e.g. towards the end she develops jealousy towards other harem members approaching the MC. She's in full control of the events, without ever dropping her friendly to the point of submissiveness, humble and vibrant facade. This character carries the weight of nearly all of the show on her small shoulders, and makes it look easy.
MC Nakano is so self-insert that there literally is a first person view bonus scene after the ED in which he/you is given the pampering of the week. Nakano's genericness is emphasized by expressionless eyes, rudimentary drawing style, plain clothing, and mostly reactive dialog. He enjoys the kitsune show, but never is in control of it. Of course he recovers from his burn-out courtesy of Senko's influence, but neither is he ever fully cured, nor does he tackle the causes of his condition. In that sense, he is not developing at all. A typical plot point example for him is to teach Senko about some feature of the modern world, such as electricity. This earns him admiration for the miracle she just learnt about, cleverly assigned to the messenger. But in the end knowing how a vacuum cleaner works is nothing special.
The two other kitsunes are hardly more than fanservice girls and significantly more sexualized than Senko. Ironically it’s Nakano's neighbour Yasuko who seems to get the most character development of all the cast. She picks up cooking, gets her life organized, and starts to get out of her shell. (4/10)
*** Enjoyment ***
Yes, the show is quite enjoyable, just don't think too much about it's premise to avoid waking up. Despite average production values, flat cast beside best girl, and borderline-submissive plot for Senko she simply makes you smile and calm down. Moe design at it's best. Senko-san is heroin-grade escapism at highest degree of perfection. Just don't confuse that with real iyashikei (healing anime). One for the story, and six for the fox. (7/10)
*** Overall ***
(6+4+5+4+7)/26=5.1, which means average mainstream. "Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san" is an enjoyable, average show with a strong and cute female main. You will not regret watching it, but forget it the moment the next cute waifu is washed on the seasonal shores. For fans of lolis and furries, the show will surely become part of their "special list". Senko’s character makes up most of the fun, so I can understand perfectly well if people rate the show higher than 5/10. In the end, they rate the waifu, not the show - which is fine. I would defend my rating as a base line, just add extra points for fluffyness as needed. (5/10)
