+ Positives: The positive aspects of the series are carried by the relationship between Hibiki, a lovable airhead who can see spirits, and Narumi, her tsundere best friend that tries to keep her distance because she's frightened of the ghostly happenings that surround Hibiki at all times. Their dynamic is cute and full of heart, and their friends (Uehara and Esumi in particular) are just as charming for the most part. The character designs are strong and the animation, while more functional than fancy, is well storyboarded. In contrast to the similar-in-premise Mieruko-chan, the ghosts here are not malevolent or grotesque, and they end up being fun characters in their own right. The show is light-hearted for most of its run, but it does engage with the inherent tragedy of its premise, that Hibiki is mostly interacting with ghosts of children and young people that died far too young. When it does choose to switch gears into heavy drama, most notably in episode 8, it generally does a good job of not trivializing or undermining the necessary dramatic parts with poorly timed comedy. Those scenes can hit surprisingly hard, especially if you aren't prepared for the tone shift. Itou Miku, VA for Narumi, does a solid job of being the "scream queen" of the series when she reacts to the ghosts.
- Negatives: An aggravating overuse of the kind of pervert humor that is unfortunately endemic to comedy anime. Things like the cat that's constantly trying to look up the skirts of the female characters or Kenta's police officer brother openly lusting after underage girls just gives the whole thing this icky vibe that simply did not need to be there. It's not funny, it's just creepy, and I struggle to understand why they think this kind of cringeworthy shit is in any way entertaining. Kenta, likewise, adds nothing, and his single repeated gimmick of yelling and then getting beaten up by Esumi wears out its welcome almost immediately. This all adds up to a sense that you get throughout the show that they could just get rid of a few elements of this series, like the cat and Kenta, and it would be vastly improved, or at least not as groan-inducing. The pacing is also very strange, it's hard to get a sense of how fast time is passing unless it's a holiday episode, but the series covers over a year of in-universe time and it doesn't feel that way at all. Furthermore, the most questionable part of how it's paced is the ending. Episode 12 feels like it's the clear end of the series and then it's just... not. There's a 13th episode after it that's just, like, a random episode, without any of the sense of finality and closure that 12 ended with. It almost feels like an OVA that was tacked on at the end or something. It's a strange decision that makes the ending much weaker than it would have been if it had ended on 12. In general, Re-Kan stays safely inside of its box and regurgitates most of the slice of life tropes you're likely to be familiar with, and not to belabor the point on the pervert humor, but even that feels incredibly derivative. There are a couple bits that feel fresher, like the ghosts of the samurai and the gyaru becoming friends, but it often feels uninspired and rote, like it was written by someone that didn't really have any ideas and just leaned on the kinds of tired cliches that they picked up from a general survey of shounen anime and manga.
