Demi-chan wa Kataritai / First Impressions / Series Introduction

OP Sequence

OP: 「オリジナル。」 (Orijinaru.) by TrySail

「高橋鉄男は語りたい」 (Takahashi Tetsuo wa Kataritai)
“Takahashi Tetsuo Wants an Interview”

This first episode was everything, and I mean everything, I wanted and then some.

General Impressions

God, how long has it been since I’ve had a show meet my blown out of proportions and exceed them nearly ten-fold? Demi-chan wa Kataritai did a fantastic job with its first episode in every single aspect. The character designs are on-point, the animation is crisp and clear, the seiyuus brought their respective character to life, and the story tactfully rearranged and combined certain points and events in the story to keep things feeling tight and on-point. I’ll dive into the episode itself in a second here, but if you gave me a microphone and soapbox to stand on, I could sing praises for this show until next week’s episode came out. Anyways, if you only read the first paragraph of these posts, I hope this was enough to convince you to give the episode a shot.

Diving into the episode itself though, everything was done so freaking well. Starting with the story, I loved the changes A-1 made to help keep the story feeling tight. Without changing most of the introduction by keeping the focus around Takahashi (Suwabe Junichi) and Hikari (Hondo Kaede), I really appreciated the way they integrated Satou-sensei (Hikasa Yoko) this early on. If I remember correctly, she doesn’t appear for some time in the manga and I can only imagine how strange it would have been if they introduced her only to leave her hiding in the shadows until a few episodes down the road. But it didn’t stop there — the story managed to give both Himari (Takanashi Himari) and Kyouko (Shinoda Minami) a decent introduction without ever feeling like they were just tossing them into the story. With the former we got to see a burst of that pragmatic-honor-student and with the latter we got a nice reminder that life isn’t all roses and candy with Demis. Specifically with Kyouko, I really appreciate how subtly the story managed to hint at her classmates having some reservations about talking about her Dullahan qualities. And you know what? I’ve noticed that the show has been very liberal with its use of emotions, especially with character’s eyes. While it may be pretty obvious when they’re positive emotions, usually using exaggerated motions, I love how the opposite is used when things slide toward the negative side of the emotion scale.

Getting back on track, I loved the tone and feel the story created as Takahashi interviewed Hikari. Never getting too close to the boring side of asking someone questions, I love how they managed to interject the same type of pacing and humor from the source material. Sure, it may have been part because of the seiyuu doing a fantastic job at bringing the characters to life but there’s just as much credit due to the script writers for doing a great job of keeping things moving along at a nice speed. Also, how long has it been since we’ve seen a teacher honestly talk to a student about “ecchi” things with no strings attached?

Looking Ahead

Anyways, before this post gets too long, let me bring this so a close. With a great opening episode that managed to really get the ball rolling, it looks like Demi-chan might be rolling toward being a fantastic hit for those of us who really enjoy this genre. And with that, I’ll see you guys down in the comments before I run out of energy to write compliments since I could probably keep going on for pages and pages. I’ll definitely see you next week.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「フェアリーテイル」 (Feariiteiru) by 三月のパンタシア (Sangatsu no Pantasia)

Preview

48 Comments

  2. Amazing first episode, and shows that you can do a monmusu show without any ecchi, fanservice, or borderline hentai. Not to say that fanservice is bad, but everything here is just so natural and chill that it would be feel so out of place if there was any.

    ET
    Reply

  3. I didn’t read manga and my expectations were rather low, so it was really nice to be surprised in the most positive way. Usually I go with the three episodes rule, but with this one I already know – it’s a keeper.

    puppygod
    Reply

  5. There was just something strange about this episode and I had trouble putting my finger on it. Then it hit me. OMG they’re really acting like young high school kids! Even though they’re different (and how) they still act like kids their age. At first Hikari was annoying me but the more she talked the more I started liking her. The last scene really hooked me on Kyouko too. Takahashi also stood out as that kind of teacher you always remember. The one who didn’t talk down to you when you were a student and actually seemed to care about you as a person.

    Bear
    Reply

  7. Oh yes. OH. YES. I already had the feeling ever since I saw the PV, but yeah this show is a keeper. Its cheerful tone and the one-thing-after-another happening in the episode feels right. Also I like the time of this anime is when they’re recognized by the government, but still not 100% accepted in social circle. Definitely cheered me up.

    Also the fact that Scop(whose career started as vocaloid composer) write, compose, and arrange the song is an icing on the cake. Good to see him doing well in the industry! 🙂

    raxar
    Reply

  8. I really appreciated the way they integrated Satou-sensei (Hikasa Yoko) this early on. If I remember correctly, she doesn’t appear for some time in the manga and I can only imagine how strange it would have been if they introduced her only to leave her hiding in the shadows until a few episodes down the road

    She’s introduced in chapter 1 just like everyone else (the big joke of that chapter is that after going years without being able to meet any demis, he suddenly encounters four of them at his school in the same day), however she doesn’t get any focus after that until chapter six. That said, poor Yuki doesn’t get any focus until chapter 7, so Satou-sensei is ahead there.

    Wanderer
    Reply

    1. IIRC, Satou-sensei doesn’t really get any big focus until later on. I ever so slightly remember a moment where Show Spoiler ▼

      .

      In any case, I still like how Satou-sensei got to see some of the limelight early on 🙂

      Takaii
      Reply

  9. Overall, I thought the did a pretty good to good job with the adaptation (“test drove” manga a couple months ago). The anime did what it should – enhance the story via the extra visual and auditory elements. For example, I didn’t find the manga all that funny, but I did find the anime more humorous thanks to the extra visual & auditory layers so good job on that.

    — “Starting with the story, I loved the changes A-1 made to help keep the story feeling tight…”

    Disclaimer: Going off memory here which may not be 100% reliable (*shakes fist at unreliable memory*) so retract/apologies to the extent I’m mistaken. That being said, I don’t think all the changers were beneficial.

    First of all, IMO the introduction seemed a bit rushed/forced – a too “tight” if you will. Not terribly so, but enough to be noticeable & have some issues. The manga introduced the 4 main girls (Hikari (vamp), Mach (dullahan), Satou-sensei (succubus), Machi (dullahan) and Yuki (yuki-onna)) over time, and I prefer the manga’s approach though no issue with the anime speeding that up some. There’s no risk of introducing Satou-sensei and leaving her “hiding in the shadows until a few episodes down the road” if you just introduce her down said road when appropriate. I also thought Yuki’s introduction felt a bit forced/jammed in.

    With all the random “here’s a demi” introductions in one episode, one starts wonder how Takahashi-sensei could miss that there are, in fact, demi’s in the school. The manga addressed that better IMO thanks to slower introductions. In fact, I wondered in the anime WHY Sensei was the only one not to know that the new teacher was a demi/succubus. His teacher buddy and the rest of the staff seemed to know she was a demi/succubus.

    The compression also resulted in one bad line of exposition. Takahashi says “I’m thinking of making them [demi-humans] the topic of my college thesis”. Now wait a minute. So… he’s a HS teacher without graduating college!? Huh? IIRC in the manga, he already did (past tense) his thesis despite no demi interviews before graduating and then getting a teaching position. I get this is a minor point, but either bad TL or sloppy editing/script proofing.

    Complaints aside, again I thought it was a (pretty) good adaptation. Hopefully they won’t rush this too much now that the introductions are over. I’m still not quite 100% sure if I’ll stick with this (probably will), but I will say that EP. 01 makes me more inclined to do so that I anticipated going into this. Kudos to the anime on that.

    daikama
    Reply

    1. EDIT: Oops. Missed Wanderer’s comment above. Seems my memory did fail me (*shakes fist harder at proven unreliable memory*) about Satou-sensei introduction, but her being a succubus wasn’t revealed right at the start in the manga – right?

      At any rate, don’t get me wrong here. Better that they do not introduce a character then put them on the back-burner for several episodes. Still, there are multiple ways to avoid that (whether delayed introduction or just do what manga did). Again JMO, but still think Ep. 01 was a bit too rushed/compressed.

      daikama
      Reply

      1. but her being a succubus wasn’t revealed right at the start in the manga – right?

        Sorry, but it’s literally the first thing she says. “Hello, my name is Satou. I will be working here from today. I am an Ajin: a Succubus.”

        Wanderer
        Reply

      2. @Wanderer: Well, wasn’t sure/couldn’t remember so that’s why I asked about Satou-sensei. My mistake though honestly, I never had any issue with Satou-sensei introduction, etc. in the manga. Don’t have one with her in the anime either apart from (a) why is Takahashi-sensei apparently the only one who did not know about her being a succubus ahead of time, especially given his interest in demi’s (and that’s the impression one gets) and (b) it adds to the overall somewhat (again, NOT bad, but enough to be noticeable) rushed impression I got.

        Again, on the whole I thought the adaptation was a good one, but sorry, felt a bit rushed/compacted to me.

        daikama
        Reply

    2. “I’m thinking of making them [demi-humans] the topic of my college thesis”.

      Phrasing is important here. He said “I was thinking of making them the topic of my college thesis.” Now, as manga readers we know that this is both completely true, and that, because he couldn’t get permission due to cultural sensitivity issues, he changed the topic of his thesis and did it about something else.

      Wanderer
      Reply

      1. Wanderer: Went back and checked, and yeah this is a total f**k up on my part. Seriously, how the hell I screwed that up is beyond me, but screw it up I did. He does say WAS (past tense), and NOT “I’m/ I am” (present tense). That’s on me – my mistake, and will try to pay closer attention/fact check in the future. Apology to the show because it does get it right and requisite, “when can we edit comments”.

        daikama
        Reply

    3. Hmm.. I think a part of the anime’s charm is that Takahashi-sensei was so blown away [with happiness] that there are actually Demi attending the school he teaches at. Especially when his co-worker reminds us that Demi are far and few in-between.

      But yeah, I can see where you’re coming from in terms of adaptation. I think it would have been perfectly fine to take things with a much slower pace too, so long as the adaptation took into account it only has one-cour of time to do things in. For me, I’ve hated it when slice-of-life’s start moving a bit too slowly, but I guess we’ll see in due time whether or not the pace will stay like this or slow itself down.

      Takaii
      Reply

      1. @Takaii: I understand your point about Takahashi-sensei being happy discovering demi’s in his school (and it makes sense), but that’s a different topic than anything I meant to address (even disregarding the parts I got wrong >_>) . Speaking of being wrong (which it turns out my memory, or more accurately lack thereof, screwed me over quite a bit *sigh*), I did what I should have done before I posted anything and skimmed through the manga again. Turns out this was pretty much spot on with manga. That being said, you mention Sensei’s co-worker talks about how rare demi’s are. He does, then it’s like a parade of demi’s – one after the other. That stuck out to me when watching the anime. Clearly this is a minor point and generally I’m for sticking to source, but here’s an example where I think it might have been better to tweak things a bit and maybe delay Yuki’s introduction a little.

        As for pacing, I felt it was slightly too fast and the above ties into that. NOT saying it was bad by any means (certainly watched a lot worse), but enough to be noticeable. And yes there are two sides to that coin – too fast or too slow. No argument there.

        I’ll end with this. Again, memory failed on some points and given that I wasn’t sure, I should have not been lazy and checked things more thoroughly. That’s on me, and lesson learned. If I could edit my original post, it be the anime did a good job overall with adaptation apart from the above comments. Sorry, I didn’t think this was perfect. Lastly, I will say that if episode 1 is any indication, I’d be shocked if manga fans and/or those who liked episode 1 did not enjoy the entire season.

        daikama
        Reply

  11. So much happiness when I watched this tonight. Love the manga, digging the anime so far. Slightly different pacing, but in this case, I think it works.

    More importantly, Satou-Sensei. ❤_❤

    s_w
    Reply

  12. I’ve been eyeing this since the pv was out. Its adorable, and light hearted. The characters felt really come to life. It made me feel relax that I got myself smiling in the end with the nice ending song. This could be my chill, relaxing, anime this season.

    Vaans
    Reply

  16. Well, I know Demi-chan wa Kataritai won’t be a total replacement for the void left by JJBA: Diamond is Unbreakable, but this show will surely tide me over for this season. (At least until the announcement of the JJBA: Vento Aureo anime…eventually…)

    It’s nice to watch cute (monster) girls doing cute things without being encumbered by the whole “who’s the best girl” shtick (as that only results in me unnecessarily hating a character that isn’t the one I like). And all the demi girls introduced in this episode do seem to have interesting traits and are all pretty good in their own way…

    And Takahashi-sensei is a total bro.

    Incognito
    Reply

  17. I wasnt expecting much from Demi-chan…. and boy episode 1 showed me a thing or two!

    Good execution of the gags and explanation without being too tedious or annoying. This one is definitely going to be on my watch list

    Ginobi47
    Reply

  18. A friend of mine has an interesting perspective: he feels that the Japanese school setting is kneecapping a pretty cool idea. That if it was a Mushishi type sensei going around interviewing monsters it’d be a much more interesting show than all the demihumans being cute anime girls.

    Basically, he was wishing for more monster, less girl in his monstergirls.

    Guile
    Reply

  22. I loved how the series went for deconstructing all the usual myths about demis, starting with vampires… garlic – she likes it, crosses? fashion item, and so-middle-school one at that…
    Yuki-onna getting heatstroke was masterstroke of comedy.
    And fun doesn’t end there, with shy and tracksuit-clad succubus, and fluffy-headed teenage vampire with usual romantic curiosity. Dullahan-chan seems extremely cute, and we haven’t seen yet much of Snowgirl, but I bet they will give her some nice personbality twist. Even the main human running the show, Takahashi looks less than obsessed demi-otaku than I feared (interview fee? – nope, I call it quits!).

    ewok40k
    Reply

  24. Gave the episode a try this morning and it was very nice. I like how it looks at this demi-human identities and treats them similarly to physical conditions some people can be born with. Each person is more than their disability and each demi is more than that to.

    GoukaRyuu
    Reply

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