Koori Zokusei Danshi – 01

OP Sequence

OP: 「FROZEN MIDNIGHT」 by (Sakuma Takao)

「桜の出会いと吹雪の予感」 (Sakura no Deai to Fubuki no Yokan)
“A Cherry Blossom Meeting and a Coming Blizzard”

I love any sort of sweet rom-com-especially ones with adult characters, as those are far in the minority compared to school-aged ones (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I like the concept of modern day youkai intermingling with the humans. In this universe it must be common or accepted enough that Himuro (Kobayashi Chiaki) and fox-spirit descendant Komori (Uchiyama Yumi) don’t need to hide their identities when among the humans, something I don’t see too much of in youkai themed series. Not to mention a radiant Dai-Butsu look-alike for a boss Matsuyama Takashi (I liked the detail of his ears blowing in the wind-in pictures of the Dai-Butsu or the Jizo statues, I have always been in awe of the length of those ear lobes).

A descendent of a yuki-onna (snow woman), Himuro creates snow/ice around him whenever his heart is sent into a whirlwind. Quite an inconvenience, I think-although the mini-happy snowmen are absolutely adorable. The poor guy loves flowers and cats but can’t touch them because of he’ll freeze them. I couldn’t imagine not being able to pet a cat-how sad to be denied one of life’s best pleasures. Enter the kindly Fuyutsuki (Ishikawa Yui), who solves his dilemma with cat whiskers to cure the deficiency of cats in his life and a straw hut for flowers. Very thoughtful indeed of her and Himuro is not blind to it, returning the favor with limited edition ice cream and catching her eye in turn.

The characters have a nice chemistry, paying attention to little details of one another like that. It’s clear they both have an interest in each other. Fuyutsuki is drawn to Himuro for his uniqueness-meeting someone who freezes himself while cherry-blossom viewing, certainly isn’t someone you meet every day. Himuro for his part, is very aware of his admiration for Fuyutsuki’s kind spirit. As a pair, they balance each other out well. Himuro broadening Fuyutsuki’s (who seems to have been rather closed off prior to this) experiences and reciprocally, Fuyutsuki’s ways of calming Himuro’s icy dilemmas.

The upcoming dilemma for Himuro is the work trip to Okinawa, which is apparently bad news for him, foreseeably because the warmer climate would wreak havoc with his powers. Interestingly, I picked up on a bit of a Kansai dialect from Himuro that no-one else was using, which would point to him having grown up in Kansai originally and moved away for whatever reason-a back story which I hope they’ll eventually get to. As a whole, I imagine the romance aspect of the story will face a slow progress, but based on the premiere, I think it’ll be a lot of fun, with many cute moments between our prospective pair. I hope you’ll tune in next week, like I will, for the team’s Okinawa adventure!

ED Sequence

ED: 「リナリア」 (Rinaria) by (Nowlu)