SASAMI SAN @ Ganbaranai

Sasami-San@Ganbaranai

Studio: Shaft

Dir. Akiyuki Shinbou

Wri. Katsuhiko Takayama

Music by Yukari Hashimoto

SYNOPSIS

Sasami Tsukuyomi is a high school shut-in who often stays at home and is doted upon by her older brother, Kamiomi. However, due to unknowingly possessing a god’s power, Kamiomi’s habit of trying to appease Sasami often puts the world into chaos, while the three Yagami sisters try to put a stop to it.

REVIEW

+ Beautifully animated. Does a lot with it’s television-sized budget. Everything has a pleasant watercolor and pastel feel to it, especially Sasami’s bedroom and house. It seems the more unfamiliar the place to Sasami, the more hard-edged and vibrant everything becomes. Great work from the guys at Shaft.

+ Performances are quite good all around. Kana Asumi’s Sasami is delicate but jaded. Houchuu Otsuka’s Kamiomi brings a much-needed male to the all-female cast, and the uniqueness of his voice really stands out here. The Yagami sisters are all type casted into their roles, but each of their voice actors does a respectable job with the thankless, one-note work.

+ Music is very diverse and often quite charming. An episode featuring video games utilizes a bit of 8-bit flare in the soundtrack. Epic battles are underscored with appropriate swelling strings. Nothing feels out of place or distracting. Some horn-heavy battle music reminds me of the charm of mid-20th century film scores. Really good stuff overall.

+/- Thematically consistent although very, very messy narratively.

– The simple theme of Sasami growing up and learning to be a “normal” person achieves culmination through a series of off-the-wall story lines that don’t ever seem to be connected in any significant way. The series deals with everything from culturally enforced incest, troubled parental relationships, and jealousy among friends by way of multi-dimensional beings, ancient gods changing the physical world at their whim, time travel, MMORPGs, and myriad other devices. At any given time, the genre could be comedy, slice-of-life, romance, ecchi, supernatural, science fiction, fantasy, and even horror. All this said, the show ultimately doesn’t feel edgy or or experimental, just unfocused, uneven, and pretty damn exhausting.

I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t really like it either.

2.5 boob guns out of 5.

[starrater]