A weekly look into American otaku culture

In my few months of blogging, I have never had the privilege to talk about a series as good as what I present to you today. The reason why anime is such a joy to me is because of all the magic and deep meanings expressed in just a medium of entertainment. But it takes a truly great work of art to really blow me away, and when it does, it fills me with such emotion and happiness that I remember just why I became the otaku that I am. Kamichu (short for “The Goddess is a Middle School Student”) is such a series. It’s so filled with magic and meaning that I consider it one of my favorite series of all time. Why? Well, let’s see…

“Mitsue-chan…”
“Hmm?”
“I became a god.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know, it only happened last night”
“Have an offering”
“I don’t need it.”
“Well, gods can’t be picky.”

Yurie is a sweet but very shy middle school girl who, like the dialogue says, became a god. While this might seem like a strange thing to the most of you, in her world it is a fairly common event. Exactly what does she do now that she’s a god? Well… she doesn’t quite know yet. But her friends gladly offer her advice as to how she can use her powers. Going for the superhero approach, they come up with the name “Kamichu”, “Kami” as in god and “chu” as in middle school. And so Yurie takes a deep breath, and like a Dragonball character mixed with a Pokémon, screams out, “Kaaaaaah, Miiiiiiiiiii, CHUUU!!!” While the effect of the yell is only a little wind at first, it ends up becoming a huge typhoon. Now she has to use her unknown powers to fix the mess that she accidentally created.

The biggest thing that one will notice about this series is that the setting appears to be the day-to-day normal life in Japan. However, the outrageous notion of being a god is no big deal, and many non-human spirits roam around and cohabitate perfectly with humans. While many are turned off by the oddness, I find it’s clever and fun. Since the characters take gods and spirits so casually, eventually so does the viewer. It’s really a pleasant world to enjoy.

But what is also very pleasing are the characters, particularly our protagonist, Yurie. My history of favorite anime characters includes Shinobu from Love Hina, Nodoka from Negima, Yuri from Ichigo 100%, and Aoi-chan from Ai Yori Aoshi among others. Basically, I’ve always liked the sweet, shy, and cute girls in anime (and in real life as well ^^). So it’s a pretty big deal when I believe that Yurie is the sweetest and cutest girl ever in anime. Her short hair and roundish head are adorable, and her shy mannerisms and frequent blushing facial expression just melt your heart. But the biggest winning point for her character would be the voice acting, done by the 18-year-old actress, Mako. Mako is a member of the J-pop group Bon-Bon Blanco, but this is her first time at voice acting anime. Well, she fits the part perfectly, using her voice to add a whole other level of cuteness to our young heroine.

And yet behind all the magic and cuteness lays the work for some very deep storytelling and symbolism. I recently talked to a member of my extended family about religion in anime. He is a professor at a famous religious college in America, and he specializes in Japanese language and culture. He recently showed Miyazaki films to his students to show its Shinto and Buddhist themes and symbolisms. Well, I can’t wait for him to see Kamichu because Shinto isn’t just a theme of the series, it is the series! I wonder how he would interpret it. If you want to learn more about Shinto (and I suggest you do for watching this series), check out this Wikipedia entry.

But even beyond the religion lies a completely different take on human life. One thing they make very clear is that Yurie is in middle school - they even put that in the title! What so significant about being in middle school is that it’s the time for change, which all of us painfully remember as adolescence. Yurie becoming a god is actually a symbol for her going into womanhood, which includes all the confusion and awkwardness one can expect. It’s a theme used in previous anime works like Kiki’s Delievery Service, SaiKano, and the whole magical girl genre in general. In each one, a young girl struggles to control her budding powers, which is an obvious symbol that I’m surprised is not mentioned for often. Such is the case the Yurie, and I’m looking forward to see how this girl eventually discovers her own identity as the series continues.

I can’t stress enough how much I love this series. This world in which the gods and spirits of the Shinto religion exist is very fun and entertaining, the main character is an absolute sweetheart, and the series also has some really in-depth symbols that I love to find and admire. But most of all, it’s just the magical feeling I get from watching it that really makes me enjoy this show so much. My motto for this website is that “we all need to escape into fantasy sometimes,” and that’s just so easy to do with Kamichu! (^_^)