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「馴染みました！入間くん」 (Najimimashita! Iruma-kun)
“You Fit Right in Now, Iruma-kun!”
Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is like an experiment to see if anime can succeed by relying on unrelenting positivity. And the results are clear – yes. Yes, it can. And in this series, it does. The protagonist is ridiculously nice. His best friends love him unreservedly. Good things happen to him because he acts based on his conscience and empathy, and the universe rewards him in payback for all the indignities he suffered in the human world. It’s almost scandalous how well it all works.
All fiction shouldn’t be like this, certainly. But my goodness, I’m glad a series like this exists, and even more that it has the skill to pull this formula off. This finale had pretty much everything you could want from it – another musical number for the irrepressible Valac family. An Eiko appearance and close encounter. Clara and Azz riffing off each other comedically. Iruma-kun being Iruma-kun to the end. And best of all, an announcement after it ended. “It’s all good” couldn’t be more comprehensively correct when applied to any show than it is to Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.
I have to say, that whole “Muffle Wuffle Crackle Bang” sequence had my grinning so relentlessly my face risked injury. Asai Ayaka (who was largely under my radar before Clara) and Kimura Ryouhei are both fantastic in these roles. And Kimura (yes I know I go on and on, but he really is that good) in unhinged mode as Azz tries to figure out what kind of recipe this is was worth the price of admission alone (never mind the fish phobia bit). And then the “Love” number. How heartwarming are the Valacs, seriously? It should be saccharine but it’s not somehow – it comes off as very real.
Iruma’s solution to the great rivalry? Simple – “better together”. It’s a classic Iruma move – he’s like the bizarro King Solomon. The thing about Iruma is, you don’t get annoyed at his relentless niceness because it’s so genuine (and Murase Ayumu sells it beautifully). And you don’t get annoyed at his reversal of fortune because it’s so richly deserved. There are certainly larger plot twists still to play out here, as the cliffhanger ending suggests – but Iruma-kun is always going to be Iruma-kun. And really – why would anyone want that to change?
Yes, I plan on blogging the second season in 2021. And I do regret dropping this series, as much as any I have since Ronja. And that’s in spite of the fact that for all the reasons stated above, it’s a mighty difficult series to write about. In the end though, Mairimiashita! Iruma-kun is so good at what it does – and so spectacularly positive an experience – that I simply don’t want to ignore it. If the anime world still has room for a series like this to be popular, then all hope is not lost. And that’s surely a fitting tribute.
Epilogue
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End Card
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Yes, a second season! And to think I wasn’t optimistic about its chances…
Indeed, it’s hard to find such a positive series elsewhere. The characters are all lovable goofs, the art is bright and the songs are catchy.
It’s, arguably, a perfect example of what an anime adaptation should be like. It might not have the best budget, but there’s a lot of care for the source material. It played with the sounds and colors, it added funny (and foreshadowing) background events, it gave more spotlight to the secondary characters. Can’t wait to see what they do with the following arcs. Evil Iruma, here we come!
Probably got a nice boost in manga sales during its TV run which prompted the renewal.
I guess the way I’d say it is it’s a perfect example of what a certain style of adaptation should be like. When the source material is as straightforward as this and doesn’t require much tweaking, do what this series did. Great cast, great music, some added puns and sight gags. Let the charm of the series shine through and embellish around the margins.
I suspect, this being NHK, they probably had a sequel greenlit when they started. And that would seem to fit with the pacing.
Having read the manga after watching the first few episodes, I noticed whatever tweaks they did to the anime adaptation actually made the series better. They added quite a bit of extras when Clara was introduced (like her rolling into boxes and trees). It’s rare for me to say stuff like that since most of the time, I’m complaining how things were nonsensically cut from the source material to anime form. In my book, an adaptation doesn’t get better than this.
Did Iruma got possessed by JOJO in the end!?
No kiss? I wanted a BIG kiss scene.
Azz and Iruma?
Never doubted this show would get a 2nd season, it just got too much praise on the internet (and deservedly so, it’s just a really fun and positive show ^^) for it to go any other way.
The big question is gonna be: how far into the manga will they get with season 2? And will they get a 3rd season, if needed, to wrap things up? Coz this show does remind me of Hayate no Gotoku a bit and that one never got a season 3 despite being fairly popular as well >.<
Also, who else thinks Azz x Clara is gonna happen in the future? Their constant bickering/rivalry and them being very much in sync a lot of the time? Yeah, I ship them ^_^
@it just got too much praise on the internet
I assume by this you mean from English fans of the series? That means little. Certainly it would never get an anime picked up for further seasons. It pretty much always comes down to money and scheduling. Investors(Be it publishers, figure companies or others with something to gain doing so) put their money into a series to get it made. They then reap the rewards if people start buying the manga/light novels/games/figures/other merch after watching the anime.
Then of course you have publishers who would be happy to wait a year or two for more books to be released before funding further anime seasons so they can get more profits doing so(See how Re;Zero production com told fans to “Read the light novels after season one aired” but then funded a second season after more books were available years later).
Unnecessary school lecture about anime business stuff aside, I was talking about how I always see a lot people talking about this show and praising it.
Sure, not a real indicator of next season chances, but in general I’ve seen throughout the years that if a show is active in the people’s minds, it has a pretty good shot at continuation. And it was a bit of gut feeling too on this one ^_^
My big question still remains if Iruma can avoid the fate of Hayate no Gotoku (and I certainly hope Iruma gets a better ending than Hayate, the manga ending was kinda unsatisfying imo), which I really hope it does.
@if a show is active in the people’s minds, it has a pretty good shot at continuation
Not in the West it doesn’t. There has to be some sort of financial motivation behind any sort of pickup in Japan. The same applies for regular TV shows outside of Japan, though fandoms often think that hashtags and good feelings mean something lol.
As for Iruma, NHK are very good with their shows as Enzo pointed out. You only have to see how they gave Log Horizon a third season pickup like six years after the second aired. Most likely because they were waiting for enough material for a 24 episode season and not the usual 12-13.