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You know, sometimes, to be fair, I just say a show isn’t for me. However, there is such a temptation to mark this negative just because it seems so uninspired.
The Introduction
After Inaba’s parents died when he was in the 7th grade, he has lived with his uncle’s family. Something which hasn’t been easy on his uncle financially, and has caused Inaba guilt. To make matters worse though, his year older cousin Eriko hasn’t made things easy either. So, with him getting into Joutou Business High School, he figured he would live in their dorms. But then they burn down.
Thus leading Inaba to live in Kotobuki-so, aka the Youkai apartment building. A place where exorcist, child spirits, likely dead writers and more live.
Low Points
You Are Given No Clue Where This Is Going
I don’t know about you, but watching Inaba become acquainted with these various youkai doesn’t sound interesting. Much less it doesn’t seem the exorcist, in training, Akine will be the focus so I’m left wondering where is this going? Is he going to have nightmares and try to keep people from coming over? Maybe try to reconcile whatever issues Eriko has with him so he can live with his uncle again? To be honest, I felt like we weren’t given a reason to care.
Inaba’s Sob Story Doesn’t Inspire You To Want To Invest In Him
Dropping the ole, “My parents died” trope bothers me. For talking about someone who died in episode 1 just seems like a cheap trick. Especially when handled like you see with Inaba and his family where you can tell it is supposed to make you feel bad for him. After all, with his parents dead, due to a car accident, and them leaving no money, he became a burden. Isn’t that sad? Then, on top of that, his big and mean cousin doesn’t like him. Probably because she had to share things and now money is tight. Aw, poor baby.
Whatever. Maybe if I haven’t seen so many shows and movies begun like this I would feel something. However, trying to get you hooked based off of pity is a terrible idea. Who wants to watch the story of someone they feel bad for? Much less when it is so forced on you it is like you are being dared, or bullied, into having sympathy?
Overall: Negative (Don’t Watch)
I tried. I fished my brain to be optimistic, find something positive, but they made it too hard. There is just nothing to really help me fathom why someone, unless they had a huge amount of time on their hands, would commit to this show. I could see if it was funny, had an interesting art style, or anything like that. However, it appears it doesn’t. Hence the negative label and probably the shortest review I’ve done is a while.
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To me, there is so much that could be done with Youkai. Just in terms of maybe having lesser deities or something featured. Maybe giving some horror vibes, or something…
To be perfectly honest, I don’t feel like this one is for me either. I do largely agree that this series feels uninspired