Nyan Koi!

Title:Nyan Koi!
Nyankoi
にゃんこい! (Japanese)
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , , , , ,
Notables: ASANUMA Shintaro
Animation - AIC Spirits
FUKUYAMA Jun
IGUCHI Yuka
TANAKA Atsuko
Kousaka Junpei is a second-year high school student who despises cats and has an allergy to them. It just so happens that his high school crush is Mizuno Kaede, a girl who adores cats. One day, while walking home from school, Junpei kicks an empty can and unfortunately beans the local neko-jizou-sama (guardian deity of cats). He finds he can now understand what cats are saying, including his family's own ill-tempered cat, Nyamusasu. However, if he does not grant 100 wishes from cats, he will turn into cat himself. (Source: ANN)

Based on a shounen manga by Fujiwara Sato, serialised online in the shounen web comic magazine FlexComix Blood.

12 TV episodes (~24 min).
New series began airing Oct 1st, 2009.

Read the translated manga online at MangaFox.
Episode Details 
999a, 1893
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Buy 8 8 9 7 8 9 Dreamer [series:2183#2279]
Just reading the synopsis had me already smirking. A guy who can hear cats talk in itself is more than enough reason to watch this series. And it was well worth it.

Art, Animation & Character Designs
Art and Animation was pretty good. Lots of details and smooth frame rate. Character designs were good. Most, no all, the girls were kawaii as well. Sumiyoshi was just a riot! I loved her character.... rather, her make-up and appearance. You've got to check it.

Music
The OP was nothing special. Just another high-pitched pop piece with female vocals. As for the rest of the soundtrack, most of it was the slapstick kind that would play along at some hilarious scenes.

Series and Episode Story
Oh my God this is funnier than sh*t!! The very first episode I was almost busting a gut. The second episode (during the argument with the make-up girl 'Sumiyoshi'), nearly had me wetting my pants from laughter. The 4th episode with the whole lightning scene had me choking on my hard boiled egg. Then the dialogue in episode 5...

Sensai: "Ichinose, go back to your own classroom";
Ichinose: "Heroes always arrive late, Sensai";
Sensai: "Then go back to your own planet".

Somehow, I just found that a riot and busted a gut laughing. I'm not sure who said this wasn't funny at all but my God, I was cracking up episode after episode. As for plot, there wasn't much to it.... rather simple one. But it's just the episodes that makes this series really stand out.... the humor that is. And all the characters were lovable or likable. Usually there's 1 or 2 characters in any series I dislike or hate with a passion, but here, every supporting character had a fun personality and did well for the series.

Overall, this was one gut-busting, tear pouring, stupid but super enjoyable series. I haven't had that much laughter in a long while. Thank God they're coming out with another season!

Last updated Monday, December 28 2009. Created Monday, December 28 2009.
Watch Stretch [series:2183#628]
(All episodes watched):

Episode one left me thinking that the premise of Nyan Koi seems rather crazy, and if only it was fairly funny that wouldn't be a problem. But somehow the humor didn't seem good enough to compensate for the absurdity. Other than the freaky premise almost everything seemed predictable and tiresome; it was easy to guess who the person who had been harassing cats was. Nyamsas seemed kind of obnoxious to me, and Mizuno seemed pretty ditzy. In the end, my impression of the first episode was that it was kind of boring. I watched a second one to double check my first impressions. Nyan Koi seems a show with good artwork and animation, a show which has some unusual things about it--but cannot for the life of it summon a significant laugh from me. You'd think that a little humor could be squeezed out of the girl who looks like an African witchdoctor, but I was mystified rather than amused. In general, somebody's sense of humor (it could be mine) is really off. The characters seem flat and the cats remain annoying. By the way, I have a cat alergy myself, but it didn't develop until well into my life. Before that a cat was my most precious pet, and perhaps I sort of resent the way they are depicted here as obnoxious creatures. Anyway, I was tempted to drop this series from my viewing schedule. What I said to myself without thinking after episode two sums up my impression of Nyan Koi: "Blah... this show is pathetic".

I rewatched episode one after several months to double check by first impressions. I was asking myself, what exactly was it about this show that had annoyed me? A new thought came to mind: perhaps it was that the show seemed to take an attitude of "ha ha, this guy is going through a living hell which he did absolutely nothing to deserve. His greatest sin was aiming poorly when he kicked an empty aluminum can (and there's no way that could really fracture a large stone statue). I know this incident was never intended to make sense relative to the laws of physics; but whenever I get the impression that a show isn't going to be particularly funny I seem to automatically go into "plausibility mode". That is, I start looking for an alternative non-comedy, drama sort of storyline which does makes sense and really could happen. Anyway, watching a guy suffer for no good reason is just painful for me as well, especially when I'm not getting many laughs out of the episode. I found myself frequently pausing the show to take a sort of break from watching. Still, I have been assured that the series will get significantly better later on and consequently will watch some additional episodes.

I still get the feeling that the humor of Nyan Koi is set for the lowest common denominator, but episode three with the goofy postwoman was modestly amusing. The thought occured to me that it probably wouldn't kill me to watch the rest of this, and I began downloading the remainder of the series. Apparently the main surprise of episode four was supposed to be when we learn that track coach Ichinose is in fact a butch girl--except that I'd been assuming that this person was a girl all along (based on the OP sequence). My surprise came when I saw the subtitle "he" used to refer to her--I thought that must be a typo. Another thing--it seems that every comedy these days includes a character who is either fabulously rich or a member of organized crime (or one of each).

Episode five was encouraging in that the annoying cats played a very small part. Also encouraging was Kousaka meeting another person who is familiar with the curse he is under--I hadn't expected this show to get any more sophisticated than the modest humor it has delivered up 'til now, but maybe it would.

Really, I couldn't bring myself to pay close attention to the remainder of the series, and post comments here, which in itself tells you something about my attitude to Nyan Koi as a whole. This was a show which I felt teetered on the line between being worth watching or not. Most of the time I could think of a better use of 23 minutes of my time, which was why it took me so long to finish watching the show. The conclusion was OK; I am left feeling ambivalent about whether watching this was a good idea or not; kind of like, I broke even without gaining or losing much of anything. I would say watch an episode or two, to see if it strikes a chord with you, but don't feel that you are under any obligation to watch the series in its entirety.

Catch an amusing image of Kaede Mizuno at Screaming Anime Characters!

My favorite line: "Why are you so corrupted? As your brother, I'm worried about your future!" --Kousaka

Last updated Friday, February 19 2010. Created Thursday, October 08 2009.
Watch 8 8 8 9 8 8 Xenoknight [series:2183#2967]
Complete... review in progress...

Check out my award list to see some of the best anime titles in the world!

Never forget Xenosaga.

Last updated Friday, December 18 2009. Created Thursday, October 08 2009.
Rent Jan-Chan [series:2183#967]
I'm a cat person! I like cats too! Let's trade recipes!

(Just kidding!!!)

While I had my doubts about this series, I find that I have to correct myself. This series is REALLY FUNNY. The different girls are just a riot.

The 2nd girl, (Junpei's childhood friend,) Kanako claims to be a 'Mamba girl'?? It took me a while to find out just what a mamba girl is!! She is really what they call a ↗Ganguro-gal, which is a type of Japanese valley girl.

This series works better as a harem story, than as a boy-cursed-by-a-cat. But Junpei is pretty clueless when it comes to understanding girls. He has two girls who are seriously interested in him, but he only has eyes for is the equally 'clueless' and unobtainable Kaede. And let's not talk about the twisted twins and buxom postal-lady....

But there are enough laughs and humor in the first season of this series to make me want to give it a RENT+ or BUY- rating. I hope that they release a 2nd season.

Last updated Friday, December 25 2009. Created Sunday, October 04 2009.
Buy Forbin [series:2183#1573]
Analysis : 10 Fansubs Watched

  • Drama : Low
  • Comedy : High
  • Action : None
  • SciFi : Low
  • Ecchi : None
Chances I will watch this : Guaranteed!

So here's the cast as of episode 5:
  • Junpei : Cursed by cats to help them. Likes Kaede
  • Kaede : Likes Cats but doesn't have any. Starting to feel for Junpei but thinks Kanako is his GF
  • Kanako : Likes Junpei but due to a misunderstanding years ago, was activly hating him. It has been corrected
  • Chizuru : Ditzy Mailman College student who appears to like Junpei.
  • Nagi : Rich Tomboy who has fallen for Junpei but knows about Kaede
  • Unknown Blonde Girl : Appears to know about the curse.
So I love the double entendre of episode 3 'You can come back later and play with my cat' hahahah. I wonder if the subbers just missed such an obvious joke.

2/19 - Stretch, Stretch, you blew off this for Sleeping with Hinako? Oh my.

It's a race between this and Kampfer for #1. Sometimes Nyan is on top and sometimes Kampfer

MAISM

Last updated Friday, February 19 2010. Created Sunday, October 04 2009.

Other Sites
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Nyan Koi! Official Website http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/nyankoi/

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