"Narutaru" follows the adventure of a happy-go-lucky school girl Shiina as she meets and bonds with a rather dopey looking creature. You would think this would lead to something in a similar vein to Pokemon, but no, soon after the odd encounter in the beginning, "Narutaru" then promptly switches to a kind of pedestrian, slice of life mode. This kind of thing doesn't just happen in the beginning either, as "Narutaru" is a bewildering mixture of many genres - one moment, it can be pretty normal and laid back, but then the next moment everything goes a bit crazy, only to return to the laid back state soon afterwards. If it's possible that an anime can suffer from schizophrenia, then "Narutaru" is surely one such patient.
The style of the artwork in "Narutaru" suits its more laid back moments, but its animation is often flakey. Characters often seem disproportionally drawn and move around as though they are made up of elbows and knees. It works out for the main character since it appears to me that she is meant to be a lanky tomboy as opposed to a more graceful girl, but all the other characters suffer from the awkward movement issues as well. The character designs are also not distinctive enough as it took me a while before I figured out who's who.
The cheesily cheerful opening credits is hugely misleading. It's either not very well thought through, or it's the production team's idea of a very sick joke. Looking at it, you would never guess how horrifyingly dark this series gets later on. In fact, I would say that the main strength of the "Narutaru" stems from the fact that its creepier side is done extraordinarily well. It's incredible at building up suspense and atmosphere. Even when everything looks to be relatively normal, hints dropped by the anime such as the eerie background music and also the creepy looking fonts used for episode titles gives it a sense of almost constant anticipation, as though it's teetering on the edge of darkness. I was not disappointed - in the last few episode it finally falls off as all the tension that had been built up to that point is finally released, and it turns into something akin to a full blown horror. The stark violence is shocking, sickening enough to tie a knot in the pit of your stomach. It makes makes "Elfen Lied" look tame in comparison, despite not being as graphical... and it was absolutely brilliant...
...but at the end of the day, the question still remains - just what are the creators trying to do with the show? It has a barebone premises that seems to miss out more than it reveals (it's basically crying out for a sequel); it's all over the place, trying to be a lot of things (sci-fi/fantasy, horror, slice of life and er, Pokemon) and ends up being neither here or there; it has quirky characters that are mostly undeveloped and even more under-used that their introductions seem bordering on pointless. Basically, this anime is a mess... but it does have its merits. Perhaps the horrifying and monstrous intensity of the last few episodes alone is enough to make watching this worthwhile. It's not a great anime, but it is great in places.
