::QUICK REVIEW::
Story: 8 (A true slice of life in every sense.)
Art: 7 (Beautiful Backgrounds but simple characters)
Sound: 6 (Fun ED song but overly silent SFX throughout)
Character: 9 (You will go "AWWWWW!! HOW CUTE!!")
Enjoyment: 7 (Binchous friends definitely made the show fun)
Overall: 37/50 = 7.4 (Very unique experience worth checking)
::FULL REVIEW::
Binchou-tan is a true Slice of life animation based around the life of a little girl name Binchou. As her name describes she's very poor and lives in a rundown shack in the middle of the woods. But she's not alone.
This story kind of starts of as a documentary of sorts and slowly introduces Binchou-tan's friends throughout the series. The story sounds very tragic and it is. From the moment she opens her bigger than life eye's, theres a 89% chance you'll instantly fall in love and pity this small girl trying to survive the day. It doesn't even bother to joke about her poor situation. At times you'll feel downright sad for the girl and want to wish her the best to survive the day. And thats what this show does really well. Pulls it's readers into this poor yet simple story of a girl living in the woods. They don't overdo it either, it's just enough for you to pity the girl but theres enough lighthearted things that she does to keep you from watching a train wreck style of story.
The art is all really pretty and does it's job well for showing feelings through the background among other things. Little details like cracks and tears in binchou tans sheets or the grassy knolls of the country side are all displayed in beautiful detail. But the actual animation portion is a little of the opposite. The main characters art style is pure chibi, with the oversized head and tiny bodies. So therefore since their drawn in a simple way most of the characters and moving objects are drawn in that simple style. Its not that bad of a thing to witness, but it does take an episode or two to get used to it.
The characters themselves are out of this world as well. The word cute is pretty synonymous with chibi and thats what this show prides itself in, its cute factor. From their voices, to the character style even to their clothing it screams cute with a capital C U T E. Of course the cute factor is there to lighten the overall mood that is Binbou-tan. It is still a story about a poor girl after all. You don't even have to see the girls in action to know how cute they are. Just listen to their voices and theres a very high chance of your heart melting. All the voice actors are easily recognized and you might even spot one or two of them from other series *COUGH*FukoFromClannad*COUGH*
Overall this show is a slice of life experience unlike you have seen from all those other slice of life shows. Pity her, love her, hate her, despise her, but whatever you do, you just can't keep your eyes off little Binchou-tan. The show will really drag the viewer into her world and for better or worse will immerse you in Binchou's world. A word of caution though, this is HEAVY in the chibi loli genre. If you can't stand the voices, look, or even their facial expressions of a chibi loli keep away.
As a side note: I mentioned back in my El Cazador de la Bruja review that they should make a show with just Lirio as the main character... If you watch this, Binchou-tan is pretty much a mirror image of Lirio, except Binchou can talk.
