First Impressions / Wagaya no Oinari-sama

OP Sequence:

OP: “KI-ZU-NA ~Haruka Naru Mono e~” 「KI-ZU-NA 〜遥かなる者へ〜」 by Hitomi Sora (ヒトミソラ).
Watch it online in high quality here. Downloads: (x264) Mirror 1, Mirror 2

ED Sequence:

ED: “Kaze ga Nanika wo Iou to Shiteiru” 「風がなにかを言おうとしている」 by Hayami Saori (早見 沙織) / Kou (コウ).
Watch it online in high quality here. Downloads: (x264) Mirror 1, Mirror 2

 

「お稲荷さま。登校する」 (Oinari-sama. Toukou Suru)
“Oinari-sama. Attends School”

Episode at a Glance:
Curious about what “school” is, Kuugen decides to pay a visit to Noboru’s school. He/she (I see this is going to be a problem in the future, so I’ll use whichever pronoun corrresponds to the gender Kuugen currently is. >_>) only recalls that it was a place that Miyako (Noboru and Tooru’s late mother) used to go to regularly. At school, Noboru starts worrying about whether or not Kuugen and Kou will be fine at home alone. He gets so caught up in his worries that anything Sakura Misaki says in an attempt to get closer to him gets misinterpreted as something going terribly wrong at home.

In the meantime, Kuugen, Tooru, and Kou have arrived and Kuugen starts “discovering” school life by taking over Noboru’s badminton club activities. After Noboru fails to convince them to go home (thinking “making hot cakes” will lead to a house explosion), Kuugen wanders off to explore other parts of the school. Later on, Noboru and Misaki go in search of Kuugen and the others, but Noboru finds himself caught in a trap set by a trio of mischievous moles. Sensing this, Kuugen quickly comes to Noboru’s aid and easily chases off the moles, but not before some “minor” difficulties. Befuddled by what just took place, Misaki ends up getting her memory erased by Kuugen before they all head home.

 

Next Episode:
「お稲荷さま。収穫する」 (Oinari-sama. Shuukaku Suru)
“Oinari-sama. Harvests”

First off, I understand that this is about half a week late, but I wasn’t originally planning to cover Wagaya no Oinari-sama. However, I’m finding that I have some extra time Mondays to Wednesdays, so I’ve decided to give some limelight to this series which I’ve been enjoying. To help that process along, please feel free to check out the high quality OP and ED videos that I’ve uploaded too.

If you’re not familiar with this series already, Wagaya no Oinari-sama is about a fox deity named Tenko Kuugen, who’s been around for so long that “it” doesn’t remember exactly which gender it is. Now while a premise like that will probably make you think all kinds of weird things, let’s just look past that since we’re already at episode 3. =) (Note: Spice and Wolf was about a wolf deity, so the similarities end there. ^_^)

 

Mini Synopsis:
Takagami Noboru, our male protagonist, has succeeded as the head of the Mizuchi household—a family of water priestesses. Much to his surprise, this decision was made by his grandmother out of the blue. At the same time, Kuugen was unsealed in order to protect Noboru’s younger brother, Tooru, from a demon. While Kuugen was sealed up by Mizuchi family for reckless behavior in the first place, he/she decides to help Tooru due to some still-yet-unexplained bonds with his late mother, Miyako. After the incident, Noboru decides not to reseal Kuugen, so Kuugen and Kou, a protective maiden, all head back to Takagami household. With them all living under one roof, daily life is not quite so simple anymore and things start to get interesting.

 

There are some noteworthy seiyuus in this series, so you should be pleased to know that Kuugen (female) is played by Yukana (C.C. in CODE GEASS, Tessa in Full Metal Panic!, Mashiro in Mai-Otome), whereas Kuugen (male) is played by Nakamura Yuuichi (Okazaki Tomoya in CLANNAD, Saotome Alto in Macross Frontier, Graham Aker in Gundam 00). Noboru on the other hand is played by Mizushima Takahiro (Michishio Nagasumi in Seto no Hanayome, Aihara Kazuki in Kimikiss pure rouge, Rolo Lamperouge in CODE GEASS R2). Overshadowed by those three is Hayami Saori, an up-and-coming 16 year old, who plays the protective maiden Kou and also sings the ED song. (The ED song performance by the way is pretty impressive for a 16 year old and has quickly grown on me.)

Other than that, the main appeal of the show is following the socially sheltered Kuugen and Kou (the latter in particular) as they discover how things work in the modern world. Those of you watching kurenai and enjoying Murasaki’s antics there should find the same appeal in this series. Character-wise, the designs are fairly simple, but the personalities are pretty interesting. The humor is light, but always present. Production-wise, Wagaya no Oinari-sama is aired in HD and while it isn’t as crisp as some other series (e.g. Dennou Coil), it still looks good for the most part.

As for this particular episode, I’ll let the summary speak for itself since this has been more of a “supplementary” series introduction to Patrik’s snapshot than anything else. With 24 episodes, I’m still not quite sure what Wagaya no Oinari-sama has in store, but with appealing naive characters like Kuugen and Kou, I’ll be checking back to find out.

 

Cast:
– Tenko Kuugen (天狐 空幻) / Yukana (ゆかな)
– Tenko Kuugen (天狐 空幻) / Nakamura Yuuichi (中村 悠一)
– Kou (コウ) / Hayami Saori (早見 沙織)
– Takagami Noboru (高上 昇) / Mizushima Takahiro (水島 大宙)
– Takagami Tooru (高上 透) / Shimura Yuu (嶋村 侑)
– Sakura Misaki (佐倉 美咲) / Kano Yui (鹿野 優以)
– Mogu Kazu (モグカズ) / Asano Mayumi (浅野 まゆみ)
– Mogu Tsugu (モグツグ) / Aoyama Touko (青山 桐子)
– Mogu Zoo (モグゾー) / Mamiya Kurumi (間宮 くるみ)
– Sugino (杉野) / Nakayama Masahiro (山中 真尋)
– Teraoka (寺岡) / Nakano Daiki (中野 大樹)
– Ootsuka (大塚) / Fujii Keisuke (藤井 啓輔)
– TV girl (TVの女性) / Ishikawa Ayano (石川 綾乃)
– Television voice (テレビの声) / Kushida Yasumichi (櫛田 泰道)
– Female student (女生徒) / Honda Mariko (本多 真梨子)
– Young man (男子) / Nagai Takanori (永井 孝則)

20 Comments

  2. I wanna see Male Kuu kick ass as well. Oh well, even though Zack called first, I call second post. This anime has its moments, so I’m gladded that its still being blog. So many Seiyuu are doing so many roles this years @@. What in the world is going on!

    Sora no Kaze
    Reply

  7. you guys would be surprised how fast the fox can go from being a girl to a guy and no one would care much lol…….already watched the 1st 2 episodes before this waiting on the 3rd

    asian182
    Reply

  8. @yanipheonu:
    Given the number of shows I’m covering at the moment, I don’t quite have the time to go back and blog the first two episodes for some of these series. By the time I joined RC, the spring shows were already going onto their 3rd week, so going back and doing some retroactive work didn’t seem worthwhile.

    divine
    Reply

  12. @anime_freak:
    Having such a rude behavior will not make things move faster and the bloggers have no obligation to you so kindly STFU. Go somewhere else if you’re so unsatisfied.

    Back on topic, thank you for the summary of the 3rd episode. I also want to see more male Kuu kicking ass (his seiyuu is amazing!). The next episode looks promising, based on the spoilers.

    seijin
    Reply

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