Reviews

Kikoushi Enma wastes no time letting you know what it is; A tween's idea of a 'grown-up' anime. It comes right off the bat trying way too hard, and failing to stick the landing even a little bit. Insofar as it is 'baby's fist seinen', the viewer is subjected to campy gore, gross body horror, and boobies almost immediately, but their presence isn't the issue here, it's how they're used. It is as if these things, which are constant and unceasing, are thrown in cheaply by middle schoolers just for the fun of it. Even the most shameless of ecchi series have the self awareness to not take themselves too seriously. This whole ordeal (and what an ordeal it is) feels like listening to a kid brag about how he drank his dad's beer once, and saw a naked girl. It's like the whole production is just trying so, so hard to be dark and edgy while failing miserably, then demanding to be taken seriously on top of it all. Beginning with the story, it is pretty mediocre. The first two episodes are almost insultingly bad, and were it not for the short 4 episode run this anime would have been dropped an hour in. The last two are marginally better, and though that's a relative term here, the point still stands. As a whole, the plot is generic, and there's not much else to say. There are a couple of creative ideas, but they manage to wring them out for everything they've got, and the rest of the conflicts seem contrived, present simply for their shock value. The art is generally pretty good, with an interesting art direction and shot composition. The character designs are also visually engaging. However, a notable exception to all this is the God awful CG. Yeah, it came out in 2006, but that's no excuse for the long, panning shots of that dumpster fire. They could have simply not used it at all when they saw how bad it was, but instead they laid it on thick towards the second half, like they were running out of time or something. An additional note concerning the art is that sometimes the characters suffer from the dreaded 'mask', where an anime fails to convey emotion through the faces of its characters by way of failing to animate it properly. The sound is fine and there's really nothing to speak of regarding it. The characters themselves are perhaps the worst part of the show, as they're shallow as puddles of dog piss and make decisions which manage to conflict with what little characterization they do have as well as common sense itself. Enma is an aloof cool dude with a magic staff and he's also a pervert, there is nothing else to his character and he does not develop further. Yukihime is an aloof kimono-clad waifu who has a secret crush on Enma, as well as problems expressing her emotions. Kapaeru is a pervert and that's the joke. His closest thing to a redeeming plot arc is his regular email correspondence with a little girl, and while that certainly doesn't sound very good at all, mercifully it is the only thing about him that is not somehow tainted by his debauchery. Every other character is pretty much a paper bag, to be puppeted about so the story can happen. Overall, Kikoushi Enma felt desperate to be cool, and this desperation reeked the whole time. While there is a glimmer of some distant potential in this anime, that glimmer is certainly quite distant indeed.