Kanokon

Combicon Dec 2, 2011

6.5

I think there must be a special place in my heart for ecchi romance harem anime - or perhaps any anime that has been cutely drawn with fairly good animation - as I've seen other reviewers disgusted by Kanokon and all it's ecchi (perhaps if taken seriously - sexist) antics. It's a fairly unique twist (at least from what anime I've seen) for the female to be the more perverse and the one who gets the male into the compromising situations that Kouta finds himself in on day-to-day life with Chizuru and Nozomu. In most anime, it seems that the the male is usually peeping on girls changing even if accidentally, yet here they are almost all too eager to strip down in front of him.   Kouta is a first year student at a school who manages to find himself in on the affectionate end of a fox-spirit Chizuru's stick, and relationships with humans isn't something that is accepted by a number of spirit-clans living in the area, but is something she has no problem with, in public or otherwise. While this might seem like any boy's dream (especially a young boy who is just beginning to delight in the treasure a woman's body can be) Kouta is a fairly shy boy, who could probably said to be trying to act like a perfect gentleman. Along the way with Chizuru trying to bed Kouta, Kouta manages to catch the attentions of Nozomu – a wolf-spirit, and it certainly seems that Kouta switches from being on the receiving end of affection, to being on the receiving end of abuse as Chizuru and Nozumu fight for his heart (usually with him directly between them both).   Chizuru is able to transform from a rather buxom student into her normal appearance; a buxom girl with fox-like ears and a rather bushy tail, which lends itself to to a fair amount of fanservice – not that Chizuru is unable to make sure that an episode goes by where she shoes off her panties of her own accord, of course, and along with the camera angles, this anime certainly gets its fair share of fanservice in per episode.   If you don't like ecchi, this won't be an anime for you. In every episode there is at least some level of nudity (along with the brief occurrence in the opening video), but thanks to well-positioned hair, nothing beyond a lot of flesh is usually seen. There are a number of episodes that do contain nudity, mostly from the waist-up, however given the nature of the show, there is a fair amount of implied nudity in a sexual context, both depicted on screen and not. As Kouta is fairly young (by my guess between 12 and 14) this could be considered to be a shotacon anime and as Nozumu is of around the same age apparent age, lolicon as well, but as it's ecchi, not hentai, the worst that happens will be breasts revealed. There is little graphic violence; a little amount of fantasy violence in which the character will disappear behind a cloud of smoke and come out looking a little scathed, and a fair amount of swearing in some episodes.   Although one could say that this anime is sexist; with Chizuru having large breasts, and virtually no decency I would actually say the opposite. Chizuru is always the instigator of sexual instances, and is in charge of her sexuality, and Kouta having female friends who are able to talk and joke about sex (to the point of Kouta being labelled as the “Erotic King” thanks to the situations he finds himself in), most of the character relationships are fairly realistic, and it even delves into the kinkier side of sex from time to time. On the flip side of this, we have other characters who are completely devoid of any interesting personality - namely Nozumu who only seems to be included in the anime to be a catalyst for Chizuru (or to push her to do more depraved things to prove her love for Kouta if you prefer to think of it that way).   There are certainly a lot worse animes out there, the creators of Kanokon certainly have skill at creating fairly good relationships between characters, both major and minor – at least for most TV anime. This anime is obviously one that doesn't take itself too seriously, and if you do you will almost certainly end up hating it, but if you let yourself be taken along for the ride, and don't mind and one hell of a lot of sexual situations, then you may actually enjoy this anime. Watching the first episode will pretty much give you a good idea as to what the anime contains whilst still leaving a lot open for discovery. 3.5 / 5 stars.

Tomo90 Jul 9, 2011

6.5

Well what can I say about this anime? Well let’s start with the story. It is very typical of ecchi genre, the male lead lives alone and is chased by many girls, but I didn’t mind the stereotype too much because the characters were very likable and for varies reason I felt for them. The main character Kouta is the usual indecisive type but I can sort of understand in this case, with Chizuru and Nozomu throwing themselves at him, he has little time to breathe let alone make up this mind. Kanokon is quite funny in its own way. If you like the awkward situation, that are typical for ecchi/harem anime, that the characters get them into then try and talk their way out then you will definitively like the comedy in this anime. Now I have to mention that this ecchi anime is not like most, there is no line of sight, lighting or blocking of the nudity. It’s there right in your face and not just a little bit, it almost seems like the producers took every opportunity possible to show a partially naked character. So if you can’t stand looking at naked animation then don’t watch it, you might have to close your eyes for the majority of this anime. Overall I thought that this anime was quite funny, amusing and a good watch. This defiantly not one of the all time greats, not even close, but it’s not too shabby to be honest. I don’t regret watching it and in fact I rather enjoyed it.

papcorp Dec 10, 2009

7

ATTENTION: EXPLICT WORDS IN THIS REVIEW. IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 OR EASILY OFFENDED DON'T READ IT. STORY Ok.. episode 1.. load..push play...(anime starts playin).. Oh here we go! [...] (25 minutes later) [...] LOL! WTF?! That's actually the whole show encapsulated in these two acronyms. Why LOL? It's funny like hell:) The ecchi moments in this anime are hilarious, pure perfection of ecchi. It's not soo erotic as you would expect from ecchi anime, instead all the erotic stuff is presented in such form that it's not erotic anymore. And my GOD, there is a helluva erotic scenes in it. In most ecchi comedies what do we get: underskirts all the time, panties sniffing, cleveages and boobs flashing, underwear flashing. What do we se here? The very first episode expose the whole anime's ecchi side right away. Main female character tries to get to the 3rd base with the main male as soon as possible! What is more, we can se her whole naked. There is no lame "object blocking" or "object imitating" scenes like in Mel Brooks movies. No, her boobs and ass are clearly exposed. NOW THAT IS ECCHI. I would  say more than ecchi. I said earlier what we usually see in ecchi. It's not hentai either, so there should be one genre that is in the middle. And Kanokon would be the very example of this genre. We can call it HARD ECCHI or MILD HENTAI (although we never see sex, only intensive foreplay). I explained the "ecchi part" of the series, but there is also some plot believe it or not (almost a poem..)! I won't giv u any intense details so no spoiler alert here (after reading this you will be informed as if watching the first episode), what is funnier the very first episodes explains the whole series plot right away :D Plot: Animal spirits are living among us in real world. They are disguised in human form. Main female is one of this spirits and she fell in love in her kohai (younger student of the school). Oh yeah i forgot- most of the time anime takes place in the school. END OF THE PLOT. There is nothing more to it :) Ofcourse the plot gets wider and bigger (but remember anime is only 12 eps long) but it doesn't evolve into anything big. There are also some plot elemnts which remain unclear. I would really want to know why they the main male character is being the target of the "love gun", what is the story of the main female's family, who the fucked fights with them, how many people in this school are spirits? Lots of questions and no answers (maybe the manga tells more I dunno). Overall the plot is the WTF part mentioned earlier. The more you watch it the more bizzare it gets. And the more bizzare it gets the more funnier it gets. Belive me, it's stupid like a cow asking for a job in McDonalds but if you like ecchi at least a bit you will laugh like hell. I'm talkin how great the story is but to be fair I'm not satisfied. I would like more exposition and describing stuff. But despite that drawback I must raise the points for STORY a little bit high because as I said: it's funny and it's really something new. Adding fantasy stuff to ecchi? When I started watching this I thought "oh my god another school-ecchi-perverted anime" but when I saw the girl changes to her spirit form.. "WHOAH... That is some impressive crazy shit going out there!" ANIMATION Animation is good, cells art is very fine, the details are not very high but there aren't any detail-needed objects or backgrounds. Things are drawn the way they should look. BUT WHY!!! OH WHY!!???? all the young characters don't have noses? I mean all of them! I think only a few times I saw a itteh-bitte-tinneh-black-spotee that supposedly was a nose! All the adult characters have them! Is there some old saying that young people in Japan don't have noses? I can only belive in a theory that author had a "vision" of how he wants the characters (NOTE to myself: check manga for noses). It's not really a must for the characters to have them but it makes the anime look more satiricall all the time (like always in anime when something stupid-funny takes place  the chara desing became simplistic). And even though I sit thru the whole series and enjoyed watching it, to the very end I was disturbed by that lack of noses! Also the "nuditiy details" were erased. We see boobs with nipples pointing thru the blouse, but when the blouse is taken off the nipples disapper:( (ok ok it can be magic, afterall they are magical spirits right?) Not that I must see them but it's kinda lame.. The anime is so hardcore ecchi, petting, nuditiy, and all these stuff (there is even spanking scene when the girl screams stuff like "spank me I'm a bad girl!") but hey were afraid to show nipples? Not that I need to se "lower part of the woman" details but at least nipples! You like big boobed anime? This is for you! I don't like huge, enormous boobs waving and randomly jumping side to side front to back all the time. There aren't many that kind of scenes but they carved into my mind and I don't like them (they look so fake, immature and stupid). But I must admit these in Kanokon are not too big. They are very big but not as big as the characters heads (thank god), it's just the jumpy-wavy thing that annoyed me from time to time. Last and I think the biggest CON is the main male character. All the characters are in high school but only him looks like a 4th grader and has the voice of a little sissy girl. All his friends and classmates look ok. AGAIN WTF ARTIST? First you remove all noses from teenagers, now you make him look like a 4th grader? I really don't get it, so just pass it by (keep in mind to lower the score). They did great animation/art job on everything else, characters backgrounds are all fine, except those frikkin noses and one male! WHY ONLY THIS? (must check manga again). SOUND Nothing much to say, there is some music but not very good. Why? because i don't remember it at all. The opening theme is watchable but not my style, ending on the other hand bored me right at the begining and I have never seen it to the end (not a great loss). I can trash about lack of good in-anime music but this kind of anime doesn't need to be improved by music (ofcourse if it would have some great OST I would raise the music score to the very top). Voice acting is good, except main character (too much girly, WAYYY too much). CHARACTERS Everyone is ok except the main character again... I mentioned that he looks like a 4th grader. What is more, he acts like one!!! Everytime he sees a boob or some ass he gets nervous like a young kid he bought his first Playboy. I agree that Japanese kids are more strict and shy and every physical contact is somehing "wow" but this is far too much. He is obiously prepared to lose his virginity but is scared and cries like a baby everytime. Closing eyes, crying, "shy-whisperer-talk" it's sooo frickin annoying! But I see one good point in this. In ecchi it's always the boy who is trying to have sex. And the girl is always like "yiiiiiikkkeeesss!!! go away go away!!!". Here is a complete oposite. The girl tries to (let's not be afraid to say it) FUCK our here. I said FUCKED because she purely just wants sex, not "make love...", just pure sex. She walks to him on the street and say "Kouta (male's name)! I want to have sex with you now!". And she strips him down in the middle of the street trying to FUCK him. What our hero do? He tries to ran away or cry and wiggle like a little girl under the big-breasted girlfriend. The question is: WHY HE ACTS LIKE THIS? Other characters? They are good. there isn't much of support cast (they just are but they don't play a big role, the whole anime is about 4-5 main characters) but hey doo exist. Watching ecchi comedy you can't expect much character development but I must say there is some pretty nice development there! It's all about sex but when the characters start to discuss about love and everything that comes with it something changes them. It was interesting to see them thinking about what is love and how it works for them. I was really fascinated by the slow action love scenes and characters monologues and dialogues about what they feel how they feel and what they want. It really surprised me that this anime can change its own character even for just a brief moment. OVERALL If you love pure ecchiness chances are you will like this anime. Also it's something new and different among all these school based ecchis. I mentioned many bad things about it in this review but the truth is I really enjoyed it. It was fun and I just couldn't wait to see every new episode (if only I had time I would watch it during one sitting). Beside the ecchi stuff that is also a great comedy and as I mentoined I can see some good "slice of life"? Maybe that is too much to call it "slice of life" but there is something more than just sex in our relationships and the characters in this anime from time to time prove it. The biggest drawback of this anime is the main male character:) Throwing him out of the character rooster would raise the scores in someway  but maybe also lower them? It's pretty interesting how such a bad anime can be such a fun.