The House of AnimeJB

Before We Begin

I’m doing this review on my own because Eurkos refuses to touch it, hehe! I wanted to warn you that as compared to other reviews we are doing, the summary for this one is long since there are a lot of things going on. But that’s usually the case in magical-girl-type shows, right?

Episode Summary

Karin is using the light of her ring to walk through a wooded area, and finds the seed of chaos she was looking for. It attacks her, and Kazune jumps out and takes the blow, seemingly unfazed. He and the two other boys in the group transform and attack the seed, but this seed is stronger than the ones they faced before. Karin transforms when the boys’ attack doesn’t work, but hers doesn’t work either. Then she says that the Chronos Clock is acting strange, and she disappears in a flash of light.

Karin finds herself back in the past and doesn’t remember what she was just doing. She turns to see the grave of her dead cat Shii-chan, and cries because he was her best friend and now she’s all alone. Kazune enters, meeting Karin for the first time, and manages to insult both her and Shii-Chan. She punches him in the face and yells at him, and he leaves.

The next day Karin literally bumps into Himeka and the two become fast friends. Later, Himeka introduces Karin to her cousin, who turns out to be Kazune. Karin punches him gain, and Himeka is surprised they know each other and asks Kazune if Karin is the Goddess he was looking for. He says there’s no way it could be a girl like Karin, and she goes to punch him again but he catches her arm when he notices her ring. She grabs her arm back and tells him not to touch her ring, and it starts to glow pink. She accuses him of doing something to the ring, throws her bag at him, and runs off.

At school the next day Karin notes that she feels more confident, and is acing tests, playing the piano properly, and generally doing extremely well in her classes that she was failing at earlier. When gym class comes around, she wishes that a storm would come up so she wouldn’t have to run a marathon race again, and to her confusion, one does come around even though it was gorgeous outside.

Later that day, Himeka returns Karin’s bag and tells her she will be leaving now. Kazune tells her that “He” might be coming after her now that weird things are happening to her, so if she ever needs help to call him right away. That night, while Karin is visiting Shii-chan’s grave, a shadowy figure of a man does indeed approach her, telling her that he has been looking for her for a long time.

Characters

Karin

Karin is easily offended and is quick to be violent, which I think is odd for blond girls in anime. Usually they’re much more serious (eg, Fate from Nanoha), or on the opposite end, clumsy (like Usagi from Sailor Moon). She has a redheaded personality, actually. However she is very kind-hearted and wants very much to have good friends and not be alone anymore, and it looks like that sort of close Love is the theme of the series. As to why she is the Goddess, we have yet to find out.

Kujyou Kazune

Kazune is too blunt for his own good, and doesn’t seem to understand people all that well. It’s fairly clear from the beginning of the episode that he cares about Karin. The end of the episode, also, reveals that he is also kind inside. It seems that Karin brings out the worst in him. Isn’t how that always works with the magical girl/guy main couple? Also, associated with the God Uranus.

Kujyou Himeka

Other than her being Karin’s first real friend in a long time, I’m not sure where she fits in. She knew about Kazune’s mission, which seems like a pretty unbelievable thing to be spreading around. I wonder if she will end up being used or possessed or something and brought to the dark side to be used against Karin and Kazune later.

Bunny Boy

He’s with Karin in the beginning. He’s probably the token “mascot-guardian” of the group. Every magical girl show must have one somewhere!

Dark-haired Boy

Associated with the God Hades. We don’t know his name, but based on his brief appearance untransformed I predict he is the romantic guy of the group, and the one who flirts with Karin the most. I also think he and Kazune will fight a lot, as Kazune seems to be the jealous type.

Red-haired Boy

Associated with the God Neptune. We know less about him than we do about the other boy, but he has multi-colored eyes and that must count for something!

Evil Girl

Evil Girl seems to be the one controlling the seeds of chaos. She’s probably not the main baddie here, though.

Evil Guy

Almost definitely the one Kazune referred to as “Him”. Most likely also the guy standing behind Evil Girl, whom she refers to as “Onii-chan”. If Karin is God in this series, this guy is probably the Devil.

The Opener

I just wanted to note that the opener is really strange for a magical girl series. It almost sounds like it belongs to an action show or something, with a lot of minor chords and haunting melodies. It was a pretty big surprise that a show with art as cutesy as this would choose that sort of song for its opener.

Storyline Thoughts

The storyline seems to be typical fair for this genre. The girl is sort of broken but comes into some power. People start gathering around her and she has to fight to save the world. In this case, it seems like she has to destroy chaos seeds to save Love, or something. Nothing particularly interesting about that.

What’s interesting, though, is how we’re shown the middle or end before the beginning. I think it was a good way to get people wondering how those characters are introduced, and if you notice, Shii-chan is alive in the beginning even though she’d already died in the past.

Most likely, it’s character development that will make or break this series, and not the storyline.

Final Verdict

This is a tough one. I’m a sucker for magical girl shows, having started out with Sailor Moon when I was a kid as my intro anime. I like the characters and want to know how they come in and interact with each other, and I like that her surrounding warriors are magical boys instead of magical girls. The God angle sort of turns me off, though, and the cheesy fighting (it can’t compare to Nanoha!). So I think I’ll give this a few more episodes, and if it retains my interest I’ll try to stick with it. Otherwise, there are so many more interesting series’ out this season that this one will end up last in my queue.