Retsgip’s Anime Blog

Rating: 8.5/10

Asatte no Houkou is really impressing me right now. In fact, I’m labeling it as my third favorite anime this season, coming in close behind Death Note and Black Lagoon. The down-to-earth feeling it emanates is wonderful, even though the circumstances involving their current situation is a bit…magical(?) perhaps. Still, the ability to keep me entertained and concerned about the characters, even though practically nothing happens, amazes me. If someone can tell me why I might feel this way, I’d be very grateful.

As I was saying, the down-to-earth feeling is strong in this anime and, to me, is its selling point. I’m going to say that only Kanon 2006 can compete in the down-to-earth department, but then again it has the obvious harem setting and those are completely fictional in my book. They’re fun to think about but still outrageously fictional. I find a more realistic story within two quasi-depressed females going through some serious introspection as well as trying to cope with what alterations have been made to their current life. This thought stands strong, even with the underlying magical theme, which got them to their current predicament in the first place (cheap plot devise but has served its purpose nonetheless).

The characters seem to still be struggling with their development. Karada is still having trouble coping with her appearance and STILL thinks she’s a huge burden on everyone. Obviously she has some self-confidence issues, which I think can only be overcome with time or support from Hiro and now Shouko as well. I really enjoyed Karada’s cooking scene and when she counted everything on the table to make sure she put everything on the table was just cute x1000. You can definitely tell she’s still a young girl, even though she’s immensely more mature for her age than most. She also looks good in a yukata.

Shouko is still a big ball of blunt-ness and words that slap you across the room. She’s an advanced form of Tsundere, the likes of which the world has never seen. How could you possibly compete with a typical Tsundere 20+ year old in a loli body…yeah you can’t. Don’t even try. She pwns you with kicks to the shin and then takes the elevator upstairs to leave you with your mouth open in shock as to what just happened. We just haven’t really seen her go deredere yet…that’s for later, when she’s grown up again I guess…

I love this anime. I’ve never enjoyed anything with so little humor, action, or sex before while watching anime. I have high hopes for this anime and I’m hoping they keep me as entertained and satisfied as they have the past 4 episodes. We’re closing in on the halfway point(only 12/13 episodes long), and I’m starting to wonder where it’s all going. I’m pretty sure they’ll “change back” at some point, and it will result in Hiro x Shouko pairing. They’ll assume the father/mother role in Karada’s life and all of them will be one big happy family because they survived this event. We’ll find out that Shouko’s wish was to be accepted or something like that which in the end happened due to her being changed to a small girl, but you never know!

-Retsgip