[Anime Review]/Nyan Koi!

Alright, I have to admit that I wasn't expecting a ton from this series but the descriptions that I'd read online seemed like it would make at least a decent comedy. Sure it falls into the harem category of things to a high degree, but they do make it work for them here. Then again, it seems that many comedies are harem in some form or another. Either way, Nyan Koi! pretty much took me buy surprise with how funny it really was. The fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously either, definitely helps things out in the humor department as well. It started life as a free web based manga back in 2007, but was picked up for an anime series in the fall of 2009 and a second season is rumored, but nothing has materialized yet.

• Genre: Harem/Comedy/Romance
• Length: 12ep
• Rating: 7/10
• Recommendation: Great way to blow an afternoon or evening with something a bit different and fun. 

Poor Junpei...

So, with that I'm going to do my best to summarize things yet not give anything away too much. I've always hated reviews that do that so I'm gonna do my best not to. After all, if everything was explained there wouldn't be much reason to watch, now would there? 

Our main character is Junpei, a second year high school student with an allergy to cats. One day on his way home, he accidentally breaks a statue of a cat in a local shrine. This, manages to get him cursed and unfortunately for him it means that he can hear and understand what cats are saying. This includes the cat that lives in his own home, Nyamsus, who doesn't overly like Junpei at all either. Normally this probably wouldn't be such an issue. However, he's now faced with lifting the curse by being reverent to cats and helping 100 of them with whatever their wishes may be. The catch? He can't tell anyone about the curse at all or else it will speed up his demise, also making the person's life who knows about it one of misfortune as well. Oh yeah, if he doesn't complete his task to lift the curse? He turns into a cat, which would kill him due to his allergy to them. Quite the situation, eh?

Kaede Mizuno (cat molester)

You can imagine that all sorts of situations arise that Junpei has to deal with regarding the cats and making it look like he's not doing anything completely crazy to everyone else around him. However, this is just the icing on the cake. Some of the cats have requests that involve his classmates as well, which make him even more uncomfortable and put in some pretty embarrassing situations. This is only expounded upon by the fact that several of them have crushes on him and are all fighting with each other, trying to help or taking everything completely out of context and blowing it up in their own minds to make things even worse. Which, as we all know works perfectly fine for everyone, right?

Junpei does have his heart set on one girl in particular though, Kaede Mizuno, who just happens to love cats (possibly a bit too much at times). Unfortunately for our dear Junpei, everyone that has a crush on him or is trying to help him with Kaede is 110% insane. They either are stalking him, jealous to the extreme or using vast resources to try and help in whatever way that is most disastrously possible. In addition to this, his own sister and mother get in on the misunderstanding as well, causing even more uncomfortable situations for him as they overreact to a lot of things in one way or another entirely.

Overall the humor is well done and the timing pretty spot on. As mentioned there are a lot of embarrassing situational tropes that run through all high school anime, but the writers actually tried to spice a few of them up and present them differently here. It works. Also, some of the commentary by the cats who are around Junpei is down right hysterically funny.

Sumiyoshi and Kaede

Many people say that they couldn't identify with the characters a lot, but I think they're missing the fact that this whole series is trying to sum up a lot of material in a short amount of time. The focus here is mainly between Junpai and Kaede, everyone else is just filler for the most part, though there is a decent amount of development for Kanako Sumiyoshi, Junpei's friend since childhood, as well. The fact that there's only 12 episodes doesn't help with character development and sometimes there are rather big jumps between events, but it's forgivable as they're only after the high points here. Cultural festivals, amusement parks, class trips, etc. We've seen it all before, but the show does a good job of putting a different slant on things enough that you don't mind it at all.

As I said earlier, there have been rumors of a second season (even hinted directly in the show itself) and the original author, Sato Fujiwara, has continued with the manga but it doesn't appear that a second season will be happening any time soon. At least nothing has been announced, which is a bit of a shame. It would be interesting to see what else they could come up with down the road, but I guess only time will tell. Either way, if you're into comedy with a bit of romance and some SoL thrown in...check it out. Just don't expect anything too deep here, it's a lighthearted and fun way to get a few laughs over the course of an evening or afternoon.