OP Sequence

OP: 「学園総館 Zoo」(Gakuen Soukan Zoo) by Ranka, Kurumi, Yukari, and Miyubi

「おおかみ親分ランカ」 (Ookami Bosu Ranka)
“Ranka the Wolf Boss”

New year, new anime, and what’s that? New waifus? Something like that. Winter season may not be kicking into high gear until next week, but Murenase! Seton Gakuen isn’t about to let its moment in the spotlight fade that easy. Between the setup, the comedy, and the host of incoming characters this one aims to be a blast, and frankly it’s not hard doubting it. When you’re leading with stuff like this, what comes next will be a riot.

While the handy dandy RC Preview sums it up nicely, Murenase can be thought of as the animal version of Centaur no Nayami/Demi-chan Kataritai (or an adventure-less Kemono Friends). It’s cute, it’s simple, it’s school life, and while comedy is the primary focus, the feels intend on making their presence felt. Barring wrapping your head around the premise—i.e. school for animals our main man Mazama Jin (Ishiya Haruki) just so happens to enroll in—it won’t pay to dwell too much on the details. Why is it a school for animals? Why is Jin and fellow human Hitomi Hino (Miyamoto Yume) the only humans around? Why are the males the only actual animals? How did life find a way? Questions we’re unlikely to find out any answers for, and questions unlikely to be that important in the end. With school-life/slice-of-life series it’s all about the comedy and feels, and Murenase has gone all in on them.

The main driver for Murenase’s humour will be the relationship between Jin and lone wolf Ranka (Kino Hina), and so far at least it works like a treat. Ignoring the ubiquity of the setup (childhood friends in all but name? You got that right), Ranka nails the cute yet dumb tsundere-esque personality providing for many glorious reaction faces, while Jin plays up the straight man that simultaneously keeps Ranka in line while driving her into further hilarity. Sure comedy is always subjective, but between the many comedic opportunities animal quirks provide and Hina Kino’s voice acting I’d like to think Murenase will hit more than miss. After all, pulling tails and going for French kissing right off the bat definitely doesn’t rub the wrong way, especially when poor Hino (among soon to be others) is brought in on the action.

While it’s anyone’s guess whether Murenase can keep up the lighthearted comedy going forward, this certainly is one show more than suitable for a bit of weekly relaxation. It may not be the end all be all of school-life experiences, but you can bet this one has a few tricks waiting up its sleeve.

Random Tidbits:

Magic: the Gathering easter egg’ed in anime? Now that’s not something I thought I’d ever see.

ED Sequence

ED: 「オオカミブルーズ」(Wolf Blues) by Ranka

Preview

22 Comments

  1. To add to the questions, why does the faculty seem to consist solely of extinct animals? And even more concerning is the depiction of the spotted hyena, which appears to be based on the old myth of them being hermaphrodites. Maybe they are just trying to shoehorn some LGBTQ+ wokeness in there.

    Anyway, seems to be funny enough at this stage with the promise of more ecchiness to come.

    Angelus
    1. Lol… wokeness shoehorning. The scanlator group who did this manga is a bunch of chan edgelords making trump and brexit joke credit pages.

      Is just a comedy on animal shenanigans. You can quit your tinfoil hat now.

      cvb
    2. “To add to the questions, why does the faculty seem to consist solely of extinct animals?”

      My guess is that there is a joke about adults/teachers being “old fossils”.

      BSR
  2. Having read the manga, I was looking forward to this series, but I’m a bit conflicted with this first episode. The anime cut out a few things and then rearranged the characters/events. A couple things made more sense (e.g. Hitomi got a little bit more screen time and Tyrano-sensei’s appearance made more sense), but a few scenes where Jin had a bit more character development were also cut. The pacing also felt rushed, but it’s probably because the manga actually has quite a lot of animal facts to fit in.

    I’ll probably keep watching since the first episode wasn’t a total disappointment, but I’m definitely tempering my expectations.

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