Anime Review: Kyoukai no Kanata

Kyoukai no Kanata is one of the anime that I put in my watchlist for this fall 2013 season. Somehow, this anime is categorized as a slice of life anime which is a little bit deceiving. Yeah sure, we get to see the highschool life and the interaction between characters especially between Akihito and Mirai. However, I would categorize this anime as an action anime on par with the likes of To Aru Kagaku Railgun or Shakugan no Shana in terms of the proportion between action and slice of life. I’ve been watching for three episodes and it is safe to say that I will continue watching this series since it’s very interesting. Don’t worry though, this review will contain mild spoilers which would not affect the enjoyment of watching the show. So, let’s get started with the review.

Introducing Mirai Kuriyama, the main female protagonist who is a cute girl wearing glasses with pink hair. When I look at Mirai Kuriyama, it reminded me of Yui Hirasawa from K-ON! in term of looks. And also, Mitsuki Nase is kinda look like Mio Akiyama so sometime I get a weird feeling watching them. Anyway, Mirai Kuriyama is much more tsundere and withdrawn then Yui will ever be. Her signature quote would be “Fuyukai desu” which means “It’s unpleasant” to imply that she feels annoyed. However, Mirai Kuriyama holds a very dark past in her. She can manipulate her own blood as a weapon which she usually prefer to make it into a sword. I’m always attracted in characters that can control blood as a weapon and usually that particular character is deemed to be cursed by other people. This also applies to Mirai Kuriyama with her cursed blood rendering her to be isolated from the community.

Then came Akihito Kanbara, the other male protagonist of this series. He has a megane fetish which means he is attracted to girls wearing glasses. I think this is how Akihito took an interest towards Mirai Kuriyama. Akihito is a half youmu and have the ability to quickly heal any wound that is inflicted on him. However, Akihito still feel the pain when he get stabbed or injured. This makes Akihito a target practice for Mirai as you can see often Mirai chasing Akihito in attempt to kill him.

The story revolves around hunting youmu and you have the terms of Spirit World Warriors which refers to people who hunts youmu for a living. The concept is everytime a youmu hunter kills a youmu, it will drop somekind of a gem which can later be exchange into money. Now, what’s interesting is that every hunter has different weapons when it comes to killing the youmu which makes the supernatural aspect of this anime more interesting. Also, since Mirai Kuriyama is despised by some other youmu hunters, she occasionally is hunted by other youmu hunters. This makes the story even more exciting. Battles between major characters are always fun to watch so I guess this anime is really worth to watch.

The balance between comedy and action is really well-thought in this series. During school time, we get to see the comedy part of the anime and occasionally the moe-ness of each character. Mirai Kuriyama who I thought was a withdrawn girl with no interest in having a relationship with other humans can sometime put up a cute face. However, make no mistake, once the action part of the anime kicks in, you will have an exciting fast paced action you can enjoy out of an anime. The graphic is amazing and I think that’s what you would expect when KyoAni does the job. All in all, Kyoukai no Kanata should be in your watchlist for this season.