Kamisama Kazoku

Title:Kamisama Kazoku
God Family
神様家族 (Japanese)
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , , , ,
Notables: KISHIO Daisuke
KOSHIMIZU Ami
MAEDA Ai
At first glance, Kamiyama Samataro might look like an average 2nd year high school student, but he has to work very hard to maintain that image and keep his family secrets hidden. Even with Tenko, his childhood friend, looking after him, things are always going wrong. Not that it is really Tenko’s fault, she is Samataro's guardian Angel and being an Angel, she does not understand what it means to be human. It Samataro’s parents that are impossible and tend to be the cause of a lot of his troubles. His father is a God who is not beyond lending his son a bit of magical help, but his mother is no better. She is Goddess with no shame or modesty, who likes to dress up as a high school cheerleader to show her favor for her eldest son. Samataro’s sisters are at least understanding and usually helpful. While they are goddess candidates with special powers, they are the same situation as he is and are having to put up with their parents decision to have their kids learn about normal people by spending time living in the human world.

And then one day, a cute and mysterious student transfers into Samataro’s class. He is smitten with the reserved Kumiko and sets his sights on being her boyfriend. Now if only Tenko would stop chasing after him, and stop telling him what to do - and just leave him alone! It is already bad enough that their classmates are gossiping about the two of them always being together. And if only his parents would stop interfering with their twisted ideas as to how to help, he might even have a chance to get close to Kumiko.


13 TV Episodes
Animation by Media Factory & Toei Animation

1:30min Opening Sequence (OP) - YouTube Video
Episode Details 
1
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Buy 8 8 9 7 8 8 Dreamer [series:1359#2279]
I had watched this a while back but didn't add a review, so here it is.

Art, Animation and Character Design
Art and animation was pretty good. At least it appears to be above average. Colors are rich and character designs are nice, while the girls are cute. At times the scenes would look "dreamy", which would make the animation more artistic. Tenko reminds me alot of Lain of Serial Experiment Lain.... but much cuter and not so mysterious... or creepy. "Pappa god" was quite childish but still an enjoyable character.

Music
The opening theme song is surprising catchy. I actually sat through and listened to it... which is highly unusual. Throughout the series, there's subtle background music that was noticeable.

Episode and Series Stories
The whole concept of a family of "gods" living a normal life automatically caught my interest. The whole concept was interesting and not your run-of-the-mill anime storyline. Although some of the episodes might be considered "fillers", they were still enjoyable to watch and even "slightly" added to the continuing plot. If such a idea of a god-family and a god in training, then this series does a good job in telling it as if that's exactly how it would really be. The ending was both dramatic and climatic. A good ending to finish off a good anime.

Overall, this was a great anime and well worth the time spent on it. It's a buy for sure.

Last updated Monday, February 16 2009. Created Monday, February 16 2009.
Watch Stretch [series:1359#628]
(Watch+ or Rent-)

(All Episodes watched):

I thought I had compiled a preliminary review long ago, but apparently my memory is faulty. Memory is important here, because the Kamisama Kazouku fansubs take awhile to become available, once every couple of months or so, and each time I watch a new one I have to deduce what is going on, because I've already forgotten what happened last time. For the most part, this show did indeed seem "forgettable"--until I watched the latest episode. Here was a startling twist which took me completely by surprise, especially since I had become convinced that this was a very fluffy, cotton-candy like story. A demon intrudes into the story, and in the form of the last person you'd expect--that's not supposed to happen! The way things get fairly dark and frightening in what had seemed a silly comedy reminds me of certain episodes of Inukami. I'm intrigued at this all-bets-are-off event, and can't help wondering what will happen next--I think I'll have an easier time remembering what's going on when the next episode becomes available!

I finally got around to watching the final episode and was pleased with the enjoyable way the story wrapped up. Again, it had been a long time since I watched the last episode and I had to figure out just what was going on, but it was clear that this episode was exciting and held my interest well. It involves a climactic battle between Samatarou and one seriously frightening demon; I like the "trick" Samatarou came up with to win without paying too high a cost--i.e, becoming evil himself. One minor problem I noticed was that perhaps a bit too much post-battle fluff was added, making the episode a little anti-climactic. But things work out OK and you are left feeling good at the end. The fact that it took me so long to watch this show and that my memory is so poor may have robbed it of a better rating. I don't know if I'll ever watch Kamisama Kazoku again, but I'm glad I watched it once.

Last updated Tuesday, December 04 2007. Created Friday, March 23 2007.
Buy 8 8 9 9 9 9 chibi [series:1359#2380]
Deux ex machina isn't a plot mechanism in this series; it is the plot. Samataro wants to live the life of a regular boy, but he's a god in training, and the gods, godesses, and godess-elects in his family keep doing him "favors" that are making his life miserable. The series starts out with this funny premise, but gets more serious as Samataro begins to learn the hard way what it means to be human, and what it can mean to be a god. What I liked about the series was how it was able to fold in different arcs to cover different aspects of Samataro's education, and always remained fresh and interesting to the end. The animation is done in a sharp, modern style that kept the images bright and lively. The characters were nicely designed, though it seemed they all had their energy knob stuck at 100 all the time, but that's a minor quibble. I especially enjoyed both the OP and ED music -- nothing particularly remarkable about it, but catchy pieces by talented musicians that I didn't want to skip over. This is an imaginative and well-done short series you should add to your to-watch list.

Last updated Tuesday, January 02 2007. Created Tuesday, January 02 2007.
Unevaluated Jan-Chan [series:1359#967]
With the 3rd episode out (compliments of the Kamisabu! Team), I find myself really enjoying the simple silliness and humor of this story. With a lot of slapstick comedy, Samataro really has to work to put up with all the weirdness that is going on around him. He even has to deal with his dad wanting to help his son's popularity by zapping the girl that he is interested in, to make her fall in love with him - OH! What a bother!!

This is a turning out to be a cute and amusing high school romance story – with a lot of interesting characters and story-line twists, just to keep the situation intersting.

Last updated Friday, June 02 2006. Created Thursday, June 01 2006.

Other Sites
NameURL
Official Toei (Japanese) Series Web Site http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/kamisama/
(English) Wikipedia listing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamisama_Kazoku

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