First Impressions / Nyan Koi! / Series Introduction

OP Sequence

OP: 「にゃんだふる！」 (Nyanderful!) by 榊原ゆい (Sakakibura Yui)
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「ブサイクな猫と呪われし高校生」 (Busaiku na Neko to Norowareshi Koukousei)
“The Ugly Cat and the Cursed High School Student”

Nyan or meow? What sound do cats actually make? If you read Omni’s Fall preview, you probably already have a good idea what Nyan Koi’s about. In fact, his short blurb about it basically sums up this entire introductory episode minus the character details and comedic outburts.

At the core of the series, we have a high school romance comedy. Unlike Kampfer though, the pitch here is that our male protagonist Kousaka Junpei (Asanuma Shintaro of Da Capo II) is horribly allergic to cats whereas his love interest Mizuno Kaede (Iguchi Yuka of To Aru Majutsu no Index) absolutely adores them. On his way home one day, Junpei accidentally defiles the shrine of the local cat deity by decapitating its statue and finds himself cursed. As a very, very cruel twist of fate, he now understands what cats are saying and has to help a hundred of them with their requests or suffer the punishment of being turned into the very feline creature he despises. In short, he has cat problems in every possible literal sense you can imagine.

If you found that Kampfer wasn’t for you and are looking for a romance comedy this season, Nyan Koi may just fit the bill. This is obviously more so if you’re a cat lover. That said, the cats are really cute both design and personality wise. The two main ones, Nyamsus and Tama, are played by Tanaka Atsuko (of GitS fame) and Fukuyama Jun (of Lelouch fame) respectively. While most people are probably used to Jun spouting out lines about the United States of Japan, he’s actually very capable of playing the “cute” role like he does here as Tama. In general, the comedy is very light and unassuming but is pretty consistent throughout. Whether it’s Junpei’s innate proximity sensor, Kaede’s cat ravaging, or general misunderstandings from yelling at cats, the show definitely has its moments. Nothing has been “lol funny” yet, but I see the potential. The comedic highlight of this episode was undoubtedly the dialogue from Junpei’s dream becoming a reality, except not quite the way he had imagined.

There are still a bunch of characters who haven’t shown up yet, but with a cast that includes Tomatsu Haruka, Shiraishi Ryoko, Satou Rina, Kobayashi Yuu, and Sakakibara Yui (who also sings the OP theme), it gives me something to look foward to. In particular, I want to see when these two girls show up to spice things up. For a series such as this though, you can’t really expect much out of the romance portion aside from constantly being teased about it. However, if you don’t mind a light comedy about a guy suffering his way through his feline endeavours, it may prove to be pretty entertaining. Production-wise, I felt AIC did a good job with the first episode. The characters designs were good too, which is pretty key since it’s a HUGE downer for me when they’re not.

Anyway, I’m not a huge fan of Iguchi Yuka in lead roles, but I was already convinced I’d be watching this series a couple of weeks ago. Whether or not I’ll be providing detailed weekly coverage on it is another story though.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「Strawberry ～甘く切ない涙～」 (Strawberry ~Amaku Setsunai Namida~) by 今井麻美 (Imai Asami)
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35 Comments

  15. I’m waiting for this! This is a definitely must blog title! Also an underrated title. I mean a group did kamfer or crunchyroll picked a miracle train? Boy are they wasting time…

    monk
    Reply

  18. This one is definitely better than Kampfer in term fo anime production not commenting on manga, the fun part about this whole series is every character in the series love cats except the main character who is allergic, but lets take a wild guess who always get to be hug and hang around by cats XD.

    mike
    Reply

  20. I just had to go find the manga. I thought it was shit – not just shit, it was pure diarrhea. For a first episode, it was pretty good – not great though. The manga was so damn terrible that there’s no way the animation could achieve such shitness. Seriously, it written & drawn up by a 6-yo. So I have no expectations for this show except for it to be funny as hell. As long as its funny, it’ll be an A in my book.

    It’s kinda sad that the subbers are sitting on their hands with this. My plate is more than full so I as usual can’t do it ATM 🙁 But if shitty subbers attack it, I’ll do my best to save it 😛

    Megas
    Reply

  21. not sure what sound cats make, But it’s definitely not NYAN! it’s more of a MEOW with the M part being very subtle as to non existent. sorta like…..m;;;EOOWW, like a buildup type of sound only the “eow” gets emphasized. the day i here a cat go nyan I’m probably gonna sh!t myself.

    BROOKLYN otaku
    Reply

  23. ahh well i dunno about that guy who called the manga “shit”…

    but I rather enjoyed the manga o_o… the initial chapters with Kaede, I didn’t expect too much out of it but it was enjoyable… but I’m more so looking forward to the next episode ):3… the awesomeness O_O…

    Putang
    Reply

  26. i’ve watched it!that’s a good first episode!simple, light and straight to the point…that’s what i needed most: an easy to follow show, in which u don’t need to rewach previous episodes to recall what happened in order to understand what’s going on…when u follow so many shows it’s really hard to catch up 😀

    Actarus
    Reply

  30. When there is a cat and boobies together in the op, I actually look at the cat instead….

    Even if this show runs down the crappiest path possible for humanity, I shall watch it for the cats. Have I told you that I am the ultimate cat person? (…although I am allergic to them…)

    Kaitune
    Reply

  31. Is this actually To Aru Majutsu no Index Season 2? With Junpei talking about “having no luck” at the end of episode 2 he reminds me of a certain someone. And it has Index-chan too! 🙂

    bobara
    Reply

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