StoryFrom the delightful Strawberry Marshmallow and Minami-Ke to the wacky worlds of Azumanga Daioh and Lucky Star, there’s
no shortage of cutesy comedies with adorable schoolgirls and little to no
plotline. Each new incarnation of this sort of slice of life anime attempts to
reinvent the genre, whether saturating the viewer with pop culture references
or indulging in bizarre fantasies about detachable pigtails and patriarchal
felines. So what fresh offering does Kanamemo bring to the party? Well,
other than a newspaper office, not a whole lot.
The series centres on Kana, an adorable, shy and naïve
middle school student whose grandmother has just died, leaving her all alone in
the world. After believing that she was to be sold off with all her gran’s
possessions (as any sane human being would suppose), Kana finds herself at the
Fuushin Gazette, where she manages to secure a live-in job delivering
newspapers. The remainder of Kanamemo’s thirteen episodes documents the
young girl’s day-to-day life as she acclimatises to her surroundings.
As with every anime in this vein, the presence of adults –
parents in particular – is completely ignored. In fact, despite their mention
earlier in the first episode, Kana actively denies having a mother and father
at all; infuriatingly, this is never explained. Are her relatives dead, living
overseas, or just plain incompetent – who knows!
Comedy peppers Kanamemo’s plotline throughout,
but like most other aspects of the series, the humour is neither groundbreaking
nor spectacular. While amusing, most jokes are not enough to evoke a full on
belly laugh, though the episode where Kana attempts to smile had me in
stitches. The majority of the time however, the show seems to rely on the same
running gags, which often wear a little thin. Much like in Strawberry
Marshmallow where Miu constantly receives blows to the head and lands face
down on the floor, Kanamemo all too often falls back on Haruka’s habit
of fondling Kana at every opportunity – much to the young girl’s terror – in
order to gain a quick laugh.AnimationKanamemo utilises a vibrant colour palette to reflect
the series’ narrative admirably, such as the deep crimsons and calming lilacs
forming a spectacular dusk sky at the beginning of the first episode. The
cutesy character visuals aren’t out of the ordinary, but they don’t quite feel
like stock designs either; each protagonist looks different without being
boring or completely unimaginative.
Commendable animation complements this pleasing
imagery. Movement is not blocky or lazy, and small details such as the swish of
Kana’s hair as she moves adds to the environment’s believability.SoundNeither horrifically awful nor outstandingly brilliant, Kanamemo’s
opening and ending themes are forgettable. Instead they meld together with the
plethora of other fluffy J-Pop songs out there and subsequently, I wouldn’t be
able to pick them out of a line-up.
Kanamemo’s
voice acting is fairly standard, and the characters’ vocals all seem to fit
well with their personalities, such as Rie Kugimiya’s performance as
Mika/Taiga/Louise/Tsundere X.CharactersKanamemo boasts a variety of entertaining, likeable
and ‘wacky’ characters to bounce off against the timid and clumsy Kana. Sadly,
the series doesn’t make the best use of its cast and rather than developing the
secondary protagonists, or exploring their personalities at all, they remain
ignored. Instead of getting to know the quiet and mysterious Yuuki, or the
bouncy Yume, the anime places sole focus on their rampant lesbianism. Meanwhile
money-hungry Hinata leaves such a faint impression that I actually forgot her
name and had to look it up. The series’ two tsunderes fare no better; not only
do neither of them receive much exploration, but could someone please explain
to me what the hell an elementary school girl is doing running a newspaper?!
Despite her lack of growth as a character, Haruka can
take credit for the majority of the points that I’ve given this section. Her
loli-perv antics provide the majority of the entertainment throughout, though
it did get a bit much at times. While I am aware that the series centres on
Kana and how she adapts to her new life, I would have liked to see at least
some development of Kanamemo’s supporting cast.OverallWhile an entertaining and cute series, Kanamemo is still decidedly average. Maybe it’s because I like this genre and have seen
a fair amount of comedic slice of life anime, but Kanamemo seems to take
the safest paper route possible; consequently it feels like I’ve seen it
before, and that it has been done better previously. Anyone who likes this vein
of storytelling will probably enjoy it, though there are similar shows out
there, such as Hidamari Sketch or the aforementioned Azumanga Daioh,
which, by my reckoning, are far superior.
Screenshots
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