Title: Kamisama Dolls
Alternate Title: 神様ドォルズ
Encompasses: Complete 13-episode Season
Published by: Madman Entertainment (Australia and New Zealand) / Sentai Filmworks (North America)
Based on: Manga Series by Hajime Yamamura
Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama
Audio: Hybrid Dub
Subtitles: English
Classification: This title has been classified as MA15+ for Strong Animated Violence
Special Thanks: Madman Entertainment for providing me with a copy of this release to review!
When Kyohei Kuga moves to Tokyo to escape the strictures of life in a small town, he thinks he’s left his old life behind. But when he discovers a bloody corpse, he also discovers that the past isn’t so easily left behind – especially when the past is as unusual as Kyohei’s. You see, back in his home town, Kyohei was a “seki”: an individual able to control “kakashi,” ancient wooden gods capable of incredible feats, with his mind. Now it seems that there’s a kakashi loose in Tokyo, and it just may be up to Kyohei to stop it and its seki.
Storyline
Having managed to escape the rural country lifestyle that he spent most of his life in, Kyohei Kuga now resides peacefully in Tokyo. While enjoying the University life for a time and even forming a more or less one-sided relationship with a fellow classmate Hibino Shiba, this all changes for the two of them come across a bloodied up body in the elevator of a building. This event symbolizes the appearance of Kyohei’s younger sister Utao from the village and the word that his former childhood friend Aki Kuga had escaped from a village prison and potentially come to look for him. While Kyohei gave up this power, both Utao, Aki and a number of other characters in the series are “seki” and therefore have the capacity to control “kakashi”, wooden gods with supernatural strength and abilities which in the wrong hands can wreck havoc. So begins the story for the threesome to find and capture Aki…. or at least that is what the series would have you initially think.
The initial premise behind the central conflict as well as the kakashi was interesting and especially for the first few episodes I was found myself hooked into watching. However after that you may begin to realize that they are padding the storyline with a considerable number of characters (Most of whom have a gripe against either or both Kyohei and Utao) whom aside from the main trio feel more like incidental characters rather than a secondary character cast (This includes Aki who is supposed to be the antagonist).
Characters who appear in the first few episodes suddenly appear in the last few episodes and even if they continue through the series they have only small snippets of development which are then cut-off and left open ended. The only characters who had much in terms of development were Kyohei and Aki who were given an episode look flashback into their past about the events that led them to losing their “sensei” and the loss of their friendship. It was really the lack of character development and a cohesive plot that kept this series from truly shining.
Taking that into account it is made clear that they were hoping to go for a second season for this, which due to poor sales within the Japanese market will most likely never amount to anything. So outside of a disappointing ending that was left open-ended and didn’t even cover the overarching purpose of the story in the first place, we will most probably never see the conclusion without consulting the manga series (Which has never been localized). But there still remains a slim chance that given the manga series ended in March 2013 that Brain’s Base or another studio will at least merit Kamisama Dolls with some form of conclusion.
Design
Over the course of 2011 the team at Brain’s Base worked on four titles which aside from Kamisama Dolls include Mawaru Penguindrum, Natsume’s Book of Friends and Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up. While still average it seems like Kamisama Dolls drew the short straw with its main visual features being a creative selection of eye designs in response to different emotions and accidental fanservice taking place many dozen’s of meters above ground level (Pictured above).
The show shined when it came to a selection of the action sequences between two or more kakashi, however this was more of a taste of what we could have seen. While there is nothing necessarily bad about the remainder of the visuals there was nothing particularly notable about them with appropriately designed characters and decent backdrop designs. Especially with the strong line-up Brain’s Base had already given us that year, I was expecting more – especially considering my last review saw Mawaru Penguindrum walk away with a solid A grade for design.
While Sentai Filmworks found there was enough reason to give Kamisama Dolls a Blu-ray release, Madman Entertainment chose to only bring out the DVD edition in Australia.
Music / Voice Acting
Kamisama Dolls makes use of a single opening theme Fukanzen Nanshou by Chiaki Ishikawa which is a very pleasant song to listen to complemented by very colourful and artistic animation. Interestingly enough they choose to censor certain characters in the opening sequence until they are revealed in the episodes to leave some element of surprise… something that was done to a lesser extent in Karin: Chibi Vampire with the anime-exclusive character. The primary ending theme is named Switch ga Ittara also by Chiaki Ishikawa which is also a good theme however the ending pretty much comes down to a standard recap of the episode.
The English dub which was produced by Sentai Filmworks in collaboration with Seraphim Digital does its job well with Hilary Haag playing to her usual strength as the young Utao with Leraldo Anzaldua also doing Kyohei Kuga justice. Highlights of this dub include Adam Gibbs as Koushirou Hyuuga, Luci Christian putting on her more boyish tone of voice for Kirio and Monica Rial who also donned a more mature tone of voice as Hibino Shiba. The Japanese dub included in this release is also quite good.
Extras
Fortunately there is quite a wealth of bonus goodies included with the English release of Kamisama Dolls which I think are worth a watch. Back in my review of Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth last year I praised Sentai Filmworks for translating a number of small short sequences that were included in the release. Fortunately they were able to do this again with Kamisama Dolls and retained six small “shorts” which were voted for by the community before the physical media releases of the series in Japan. These short segments are as follows:
- Hibino Works Out in Her Swimsuit – Kamisama Diet!
- A Date With Utao
- Mahiru’s Private Lesson – Mistress, Please Stop!
- Utao Cosplay Session
- Utao Shows You Around Tokyo In Her Swimsuit – As pictured above they chose to use her puppet form from the “Next Episode” segments.
- A Yukata-Clas Mahiro At the Fireworks Display
In addition to these shorts you have a few Japanese Promos and Commercials (All translated), textless opening and closing sequences, an artwork gallery and a number of trailers for different Madman Entertainment titles.
Personal Opinion / Final Words
Lacking coherency and having the risk of never being completed, Kamisama Dolls delivers an interesting idea to the table that while offering a few enjoyable elements leaves with a less than expected experience. While not special in any way it still wasn’t a bad watch by any means and I do have my hopes for a second season to close the many loose ends they have left in this season. If there is no second season which is becoming a much more likely outcome then there is no real point for watching any of the more serious elements of the show.
Overall Score for Kamisama Dolls
