Kamisama No Inai Nichiyoubi: Introduction and First Impression

Kamisama No Inai Nichiyoubi: Introduction and First Impression

By Unknown - Saturday, July 13, 2013 - No Comments

God created the world on Monday.
Separated Order and Chaos on Tuesday.
Sorted each and every number on Wednesday.
Allowed time to flow on Thursday
Looked at every corner of the world on Friday
Rested on Saturday.
 And on Sunday… God forsook the world.
 

Some deep stuff there. 

These here are the opening lines for the new Anime, Kamisama No Inai Nichiyoubi, The World God Abandoned on Sunday. Highly anticipated by its existing fan base, Kaminai first aired last Sunday to rave reviews by various sites.

Kamisama No Inai Nichiyoubi tells of a world where humans cannot reproduce or die, cursed to wander around after death even as their flesh rots and they decompose.

Our main character, Ai is a gravekeeper, responsible for burying the undead and granting them eternal rest.

Behold the face of soon-destroyed innocence

Ai has dug 47 graves on a hill, one for every member of her village, living in contentment with her adopted parents and waiting for her long lost father, one Hampnie Hambart, to return for her.

Hampnie Hambart: Trigger-happy, badass killer, Yamato Hotsuin clone

This idyllic existence continues until a man who calls himself Hampnie Hambart massacres the entire village, for the first time forcing Ai to face cruel reality, wounding her both physically and mentally.

and the face of innocence broken

The premise is a fresh one, a refreshing break from run-of-the-mill anime filled with the most horrifyingly convoluted love-lines, or impossibly round eyed lolis, not forgetting the one where a hapless maiden gets swept off her feet by her convoy of charming male companions.

Unlike all these, this one is brutal from the outset, set in a world abandoned by its creator, it’s ill-fated inhabitants unable to find peace in death, and it’s adorable main character losing her entire village in the first few moments.

A classic yet dreadfully morbid version of breaking the cutie.

All in the first episode

 First Impressions

This episode lays down the history of the Kamina universe and kicks into motion the event that launches the action, the murder of Ai’s village. For the uninitiated, the God of the Kamina world, an incompetent, absentee father type deity, basically complains, in booming baritone god-voice and all, from a light in the clouds, that Heaven and Hell are too crowded and that he has failed. He follows this extremely undignified tirade by declaring that he has forsaken the world and this is where the laws of nature simply off themselves, leaving characters stranded on a crapsack of an Earth where they cannot die or reproduce.

"Ah... I have failed"--god

You betcha.

Earlier, I mentioned rave reviews by other anime sites. This will not be one, Fans of hyperbole, avert your eyes.

Let's break your bubble first and start from the bad, the characters are inconsistently rendered, sometimes getting downright sloppy, this is painfully apparent in long shots, although I will concede that this is me nitpicking. But still.

We have this...

... And we have this

Although I understand this to be a stylistic choice, the highly disproportionate prepubescent characters in the anime, with their far-too-big heads and eyes, really rub me the wrong way.

but on the other hand...

Moving on quickly from there, it is plain that despite its shortcomings, a good lot of effort has been put into animation, in-show renderings of the sun-scorched, dusty world were nothing short of breathtaking, the music is pretty good, camera angles were put to use for a number of gory discretion shots that were effective nonetheless.

Right about here I would like to comment on the absolutely sublime voice acting courtesy of Daisuke Namikawa and Aki Toyosaki, both accomplished in their own right. Namikawa voices pretty boy murderer Humpnie Humbert alongside Aki Toyosaki’s Ai, they pretty good chemistry and Toyosaki has really really improved. I have no idea how much I have to say this to drum it in, but go listen for yourself.

Another thing that really ticked me off was that, despite the admirable effort made by the production team to effectively pack the entire premise, among other things, of the show into the first episode, some moments were still extremely confusing, and that is coming from someone who’s read the manga.

All in all though, it would be unwise to judge Kamina based on its first episode. Although I truly believe that things will only get better from here.

Irresponsible-fathers-really-suck

Ash.

Written by Ash

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