Miss Shachiku and the Little Baby Ghost

AustinDR May 19, 2022

6

To think of this series, imagine The Helpful Fox Senko-san but with a cute ghost girl. Here, we continue with the fact that Japan has a severe work rhetoric with Fushihara being a corporate slave who spends entire days working. That is until she meets Yurei, a cute wittle baby ghost who at first tries scaring her away from her work before comforting her by giving her backrubs or tea.  This is the basis for a third of the series; Fushihara is overexerting herself; Yurei wants her to leave but subsequently does something cute that revigorates Fushihara much to the latter's chagrin. This is one of those cases where nothing really happens, but at the same time, I can't say I was ever bored with it mostly because I like the two lead characters. It is animated well, but wouldn't call it Hanamaru Kindergarten in terms of cuteness.  Fushihara is a hard worker who is always given the brunt of the workload. In terms of being a fully-developed character, she is flat, but I do like her relationship with Yurei. Largely the main reason the little ghost girl is so determined to help her leave work has to do with how she reminded her of her mother who was also a hard worker much like Fushihara. As such, Fushihara takes on the role of becoming a second mother for the spirit.  We get introduced to other characters like the cat youkai Myako who Fushihara adopts (she just can't resist scooping up little spirits and mothering them it seems). She does share a story that at first seems to be a true one about herself prior to her being found by the two only to then say that she made it up. That said, there is a little bit of room to speculate that it isn't all a complete lie.  The voice work I would say it's passable except for times when the soundtrack overtakes the audio making it difficult to hear what some of the characters are saying. It's the one thing that I do not understand when it comes to production and really kills my immersion.  Other than that, not a must-watch, but it is a harmless show that can be used as white noise in the background.

krofire Jul 27, 2022

8

Project No.9’s 2022 supernatural comedy makes a lot more sense when you read the English translation of the original: “The Company Slave Wants to Be Healed by a Little Ghost Girl.". It is the kind of tale that probably ONLY makes sense in a Japanese corporate context of overwork and bullying. For those of us from over-seas the idea of a central character working at the office all night long seems weird if not illegal. But that is exactly what central character Fushihara does. Her desk-bound job looks likes she is some sort of computrer programmer and she is regularly seen at her desk at all hours after dark. Why she doesn’t work from home (or quit) is anyone’s guess but that is just another Japanese cultural-thing. (And, yes, I do work for a Japanese company too.) During one of her late-night sessions Fushihara starts hearing a ghostly voice telling her to leave the office. She traces it to a cute ghost child hiding behind a filing cabinet. It is love at first sight. The angelic little baby ghost is so amazingly kawaai that she bedazzles Fushihara who takes her in and starts caring for the little one. Baby Ghost is an adorable apparition that can or cannot be seen by the living depending upon how it suits the storyline. She eats human food and seems to be very real apart from the fact that she doesn’t show up on photographs. She is quickly joined by a second ultra-cute little ghost cat-girl called Myako and the three of them setup domestic arrangements. The entire story exploits the awesome cuteness of the two tiny ghosts but is little more than a slice-of-life for much of the story. Not much really goes on but at the end of season one we do get a little drama and also learn more about how ghosts get on in the human world – and why Fushihara can see them. To say this is iyashikei is not quite right as there is a bit of a story and it evolves ever so slowly. It can be compared closely to Kyoani’s “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid” (2017) that it so closely resembles in the way that a lonely overworked career girl is befriended by a group of supernatural creatures. However, Dragon Maid has a much stronger story and the character development of Miss Kobayashi herself is a key hook to the story. Fushihara does start to get a sense that her life is incorrectly balanced through her experiences with the ghost-cuties but it is less pronounced and profound. Instead, she treats her daily dose of supernatural-kawaii is a power-up to keep her working longer. So, it is a bit unclear as to exactly what the audience is meant to take away from this. What’s the lesson here? Is it a morality play? The story isn’t strong enough to warrant a season two (we could be wrong) which is a pity as the show only really picks up right towards the end when it introduces intriguing new plot elements that could sustain it. The show is undoubtedly cute-to-the-max and an easy-watch. Yet it fails to excel in its story telling and leaves little impact in the heart of the audience due to its lack of backstory for any of the characters. Fun but lightweight.