First Impressions / Kobato. / Series Introduction

OP Sequence

OP: 「マジックナンバー」 (Magic Number) by 坂本真綾 (Sakamoto Maaya)
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

Summary:

Hanato Kobato arrives in a park one day with her stuffed dog companion Ioryogi with the wish to go to a certain somewhere, but to do that, she has to fill a special bottle using the hearts of people who have been hurt and healed. Before she can even do that though, she first has to get the bottle, and to get the bottle, she has to pass Ioryogi’s test of whether she can live in this world. The problem is that Kobato is rather naive and lacks some common sense. When a woman accidentally leaves her some garbage to dispose of, Kobato decides to let the crows at it because a sign told her to reduce the amount of garbage thrown away. When two guys try to pick her up on the street, Kobato goes along with them until Ioryogi blasts them with his flame breath. This angers the guys, and Kobato is saved thanks to a stranger who scares off the first two. Later that day, Kobato finds herself helping at a nabe stand, and even though she doesn’t know how to prepare nabe, what she cooks turns out to be surprisingly delicious. Afterward, Kobato comes across a grandmother with a crying baby, and she decides to try singing for the child. Kobato sings so well that not only does the baby stop crying, but a crowd also gathers and pulls her away because they were so impressed. It’s not until later that the old lady finds Kobato again and properly thanks her, and Ioryogi finally decides to pass Kobato and give her the bottle.

ED Sequence

ED: 「ジェリーフィッシュの告白」 (Jellyfish no Kokuhaku) by 中島愛 (Nakajima Megumi)
Watch the ED! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

The opening and ending songs themselves are pleasant and appropriate for the series, but it felt a bit weird hearing Sakamoto Maaya singing something like that after hearing her as semi-villain Alphard for an entire season in Canaan. Also, having her singing the opening song and Nakajima Megumi singing the ending song gave me memories of Macross Frontier, and it’s a shame Kanno Yoko isn’t working on any major series right now.

 

This first episode turned out to be every bit as cute, funny, and endearing as I hoped it’d be. In fact, the nabe scene is a perfect example of all of that. They actually didn’t animate everything though that was in the manga leading up to Kobato getting the bottle, but it’s probably better that way because a lot of that was not-totally-necessary seasonal stuff (Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s chapters). This way lets them get to the heart of the story faster, and they’ve already shown a good deal of Fujimoto, who I like to think of as Tsubasa Chronicle‘s Syaoran+10 years. Speaking of which, because of that, his more mature voice (done by Maeno Tomoaki) took a little getting used to, but at least both Tetsu Inada and Hanazawa Kana were spot on as Ioryogi and Kobato.

In terms of production quality, Madhouse did a good job capturing and animating the CLAMP style that made the manga so cute, and I really liked some of the background music, like the piece that played after Kobato finished singing. The insert song scene was also a nice way to cap off the episode. In short, I enjoyed the first episode and am really looking forward to what happens from here since I didn’t read the manga past this point.

44 Comments

  17. “Madhouse did a good job capturing and animating the CLAMP style that made the manga so cute”

    If I am not wrong, Madhouse produced lots of CLAMP titles like Card Captor Sakura, X TV and others. Guess CLAMP like MAD after all

    Toonleap
    Reply

  20. neta que si se parece la chica a Sakura y el chavo a Shaoran solo que los ojos cafes en la chica y ojos verdes en el chavo, como si fueran sus hijos o algo parecido, es mi tercer anime para ver

    Jezreel
    Reply

  24. @LiptonTwinkie

    Romance? Clamp’s stories are NEVER just romance; even when they start out as some sort of silly comedy, you can be sure that there is some dark and disturbing mystery in the background.

    First of all, Kobato doesn’t seem at all human: Ioryogi first says that she will have to prove herself “in this world”, then he comments that she sings just like Kohaku, which is an angel from Clamp’s previous work Wish.

    Second, Kobato has a wish she wants to realize. In the Clamp multiverse, holding a wish is never a good thing: having it realized usually involves dieing on the spot (RG Veda / Tokyo Babilon / X / Rayearth / Clover / Chobits), reincarnating / sleeping for hundreds of years (RGVeda / Wish / Card Captor / Tsubasa), breaking the law of the universe (Tsubasa), or just suffering some massive and disproportionate retribution (xxxHolic, possibly Legal Drug).

    I haven’t read the manga so I am really looking forward to see how this will play out.

    Steelman
    Reply

  27. On the fence with this.

    Contrary to what Omni says, I felt that this has failed to capture the feel of manga, not to mention that Kobato looks nothing like Kobato.

    The addition of Fujimoto there was not something I could support too(since he should not be introduced yet).

    OP was way too simplistic and overall the whole show was more fluffed than manga.

    UnknownVoice
    Reply

  33. @Steelman
    @Merry

    Look it’s just the same crap over and over….*GASP!!! A love triangle happens!! What’s that?! a Girl can’t decide who she loves more without hurting the other guy??

    OH NO!?!?! the one who she fell in love with is a half man half WTF?! The dude went back in time and kissed his mom?!?!?!

    Mixing Comedy and Romance is just a bad idea it pretty much goes into Drama afterwards. Oh no you see someone dying in the end last kiss before they die….

    It loses it’s moment when you know what’s about to happen because you’ve seen it happen in other shows.

    LiptonTwinkie
    Reply

  43. Clamp probably wants to relive those CCS vibes, since CCS Sakura was one of the first girls to be truly “moe” in every sense of the word. (She even won the first ever Saimoe competition held years ago. )

    I think what Clamp is aiming with such a cryptic premise is to show as many moments of Kobato being cute so as to capture as many “moe-suckers” as possible, and then play out as Steelman says in their usual Clamp-style Tragic-Twist, which may or may not generate obscene amount of tears that could rival the ending of AIR, depending on the mileage of these “suckers”.

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

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