Kannaduki no Miko 神無月の巫女 – Finished
Spoilers below! Don’t read unless you’ve seen it, because otherwise it wouldn’t make sense anyway 8D
Kannaduki no Miko, a 12 episode series stuffed with every conceivable anime cliche known to man, and then some, has the dubious honour of being the best godawful anime I have actually liked. ^^;;
It’s hard to decide where to start when describing this show, because there’s just waaaay too many genres colliding in one mess. The problem isn’t the art and animation, which is actually quite good and consistent if rather fond of cost-cutting triple takes. Nope, it’s that every single piece of the setting, story and characters seems to have been ripped-off, uh I mean inspired from some other anime. It’s as if they took a bunch of half-rate anime writers, sat them down in a room with kegs of beer, and told them to come up with a shojo style anime (since it’s easier to make a crappy shojo anime stand out amongst the slew of good shounen anime) but would appeal to all shounen fans including those who love destruction and badass action; but it also had to draw on the recent Maria-sama ga Miteru boom of schoolgirl anime; but it also had to have magic and evil since hey those are real cool too (didn’t you see Fushigi Yuugi and how much that made?); but remember all your characters have to be just like your typical anime heroines and heroes so we don’t scare away the mainstream otaku; then toss in fan service so we also hit the hentai crowd; oh and yeah before I forget, just to make sure this REALLY sells, stuff it full of shojoai innuendo, um, on second thoughts skip the innuendo and just make it obvious, and we’ll laugh our way to the bank, MWAHAHAHAHA!
Um, so yeah, basically Kannaduki no Miko is about a girl called Himeko (typical ordinary blonde ditz) who is secretly friends with *gasp!* the ojousama of the school Himemiya Chikane (cool and aloof long dark-haired girl who is worshipped by everyone in school for being rich and beautiful). Then you have Oogami Souma, the obligatory cool guy who also happens to be childhood friends with Himeko, and you can tell the poor guy has it bad for her but can’t really bring himself to confess his feelings.
So the story opens with Himeko about to have her birthday. Unfortunately for Souma-kun, Himeko and Chikane both have the same birthday (ooooh… foreboding + destiny!) and Himeko turns down his invitation to be with Chikane-chan, whom for reasons she can’t understand makes her all happy and her heart go ba-dump whenever they are together. (If you think this is hammering in the obvious, wait till you get to the end of the episode.)
You see, little do they know that Himeko and Chikane are the reincarnations of the Priestesses of the Sun and Moon, respectively, and Souma-kun, that poor dude, is the embodiment of Orochi, an ancient evil that drives its hosts to kill kill kill KILL the Mikos! So on the day of their birthday, Orochi awakens and some baddy in a nasty tentacled mech appears and suddenly Souma-kun himself goes psycho and start thrashing around in a massive robot that looks like it was an outcast from G Gundam. In the ensuing chaos, Himeko gets tossed around, until Chikane shows up on a horse (I kid you not!) to find her unconscious on the ground.
Or something like that. Anyway before the baddy can deliver the final blow, Souma-kun’s pure heart and love for Himeko overcomes the black hate of Orochi in his soul, and he powers up and start beating the crap out of the tentacle mech, screaming, “Ore ga Himeko wo mamoru!” (‘I’ll protect Himeko!’) and similar nonsense. In the meantime, Chikane herself desperately tries to overcome her sudden lust for Himeko to administer CPR (um, I don’t think the technique was quite correct but I guess it worked as Himeko started to breathe again).
And so, in the climax of the episode, as Souma screams out his final victory attack “Destructive Wave Beam!” or some other crap and blows the baddy mech away into wherever, we are treated to *wow!* elegant and refined directorial subtlety that cuts away from said mech-stomping action to show Chikane-chan finally unable to hold back and doing the ol’ “kiss-heroine-while-she’s-unconscious!” thingy to Himeko, and of course Himeko just happens to regain consciousness at the precise moment! Gee, who woulda thunk? But of course after the initial shock value wore off the girl just closes her eyes and seems to take it for what it’s worth :P (Admittedly if someone like Chikane was kissing me I would just sit back and enjoy it, too.)
Which then brings us to the most hilarious and kick-ass final scene in an anime yet,
A classic in the making? Yeah, I thought so too! :P *ROTFL* Dude, I can’t even begin to decribe everything they stuck into here. The funny thing is it’s not meant to be a parody, but at the same time I guess even the writers couldn’t take themselves seriously and tossed in some other, equally bizarre, goofy stereotypical bad guys, plus a ton of rehashed anime cliches like bullying classmates, boy-n-girl caught in rain shower forced to take shelter in old shack, main bad guy is actually oh-my-god a long lost *fill-in-your-favourite-relative* from hero’s mysterious childhood past, more cheesy mech action, good guy turns bad, etc etc.
The totally whack thing is, it’s so bad it’s really entertaining. I blew through this series faster than all the others I was watching. Fine, I’m ashamed I actually watched to the end, okay? But dammit, how could you not? Because for all I’m dissing this show, in the second half there was some real messed up shit happening. I mean, I cannot be the only one who was watching episode 8 and then starts yelling at the TV, as Evil Chikane starts ripping the clothes off a screaming, struggling Himeko, “WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!?!!?” Yeah, way to blow your mind at 9am in the morning.
And okay, I admit, as I watched that last episode and they start making their 15 minute long confessions of undying love (over dying bodies) with entire swaths of the Earth having been rendered nuclear wasteland, I could feel a tear or three coming.
So, in the end the girl gets the girl (kinda), the world is saved (sortof), and poor Souma-kun who sacrificed everything for a decidedly thankless task – I mean, it doesn’t get more shit when you’re dying as you fight for a girl you know loves somebody else more, and you still keep fighting – finds his peace (yeah right…). You know, I wound up feeling really sorry for Souma, because he was the first male underdog character in anime I’ve seen who hasn’t been a prick at all, has in fact been an incredible gentleman, an awesome completely unselfish guy, and in general overall decent nice guy. And he gets screwed over by fate and screenwriters. I guess nice guys do finish last *sigh*.
Huh, anime really has come a long way. Three cheers to creativity, both good and bad.
