Broken Anime

Kanokon: a boy and his animal-spirits in their finale~

Episode 12 “Finally do it?” at a glance:

To continue the Love Hina-esque cliffhanger at the end of episode 11, Kouta is left with the ultimatum of finally giving in to Chizuru and their relationship. After he’s saved by his friends from answering her question, he continues to avoid the subject with Chizuru when they return to school. Chizuru tries multiple times to force some type of answer from Kouta and gets more and more frustrated at his shy and unclear intentions. Everything seems to be working out for all the couples around the school, including her brother and Asahina, making her even more furious. After getting interrupted by their peers multiple times, she finally decides to take his purity once and for all. Kouta, to everyone’s surprise, tells her to stop, saying that its not what he wants. After some soul searching, Kouta comes to his own epiphany and runs to find Chizuru in the rain (a sun shower a lot like when they first met). Finally, after twelve episodes of fanservice fun, Kouta tells Chizuru that he loves her.

I see your point…

“Stick it in?” *facepalm*

Maybe it was just lost in translation, but I didn’t really understand this part…

Someone needs to grow some balls.

This is what you do to impress a lady.

Holy nipples! Way to go Kanokon!

Still a sloppy kisser.

I don’t know which one is more of a girl… Kouta or Chizuru…

A happy ending? Who would have guessed.

Review: There was nothing extremely surprising about this finale. The only thing I probably didn’t predict was whether or not they would have sex in the episode… Since Chizuru had been geared towards taking Kouta’s shy little virginity since episode one, I was slightly surprised that she didn’t at the end of this one. Maybe that would have spoiled the cute/”awww” factor of a happy romance-comedy ending.

After finishing Kanokon I can say… Yeah, it was primarily a fanservice show with very little plot and even less character development, but it had its moments. Whenever Chizuru cried, I felt my heartstrings (moé or otherwise) getting pulled on pretty tightly. Sure, Kouta was a shy, short, flustered, pre-pubescent guy voiced by a Japanese girl… but that probably kept the show from crossing the shady border into softcore pornography.

As I’ve said before, I’ve read some of the manga and I enjoyed it. Coming in to Kanokon, I had both high and low expectations, not expecting much from the studio, yet hoping that it would paint Chizuru in the light she deserves (a bright one that clearly exposes her perfect physique). However, it was the director’s first time directing an endeavor this big, and he had a lot of new staff, so my expectations for them had nowhere to go but up.

Beyond the plot-less episodes and scarse character development, the show did start to improve with better artwork and even some cool action sequences in episode 10. One problem I did have with the show was the rushed nature. They barely touched on some subjects and left others completely open for speculation. These included, but are not limited to: the mysterious girl trying to get her “oni-san” for herself… Kouta’s “awakening”… Chizuru’s mother… Nozomu’s powers… and many other things that were mentioned… or even insinuated, yet not fully explored. However, I completely understand the financial risk of investing in this particular anime with this particular staff-team (however, they did a pretty good job, I’m sure their futures are looking brighter since this anime!).

All in all, it’s a sad farewell to Kanokon. It wasn’t that great of a show… not even that good of a show… but damn, I love Chizuru! Sexy Fox-kits for everyone!

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