It's not another generic slice of life

I'm not going to lie, when I first saw some pictures of this anime, along with a few clips of it, I thought "Yep, it's just another generic slice of life/school/comedy anime". Being generic isn't a bad thing, and that's actually why I had put it on my list of anime to watch, however, it not being generic made it all the more enjoyable.

Whilst we have a few quite generic characters, albeit in slightly altered roles; Kobeni being the "perfect" girl, Benio being the lesbian, and Mashiro being the tsundere, we also have some slightly more interesting characters and personalities for those already mentioned.

Although the plot between Hakuya and Kobeni isn't really fleshed out as much as it could be, and I think they could have detracted from Mashiro's UMA obsession to spend more time developing them. I think there was a very good progression in the story within the limit of 12 episodes.

English Name:

Engaged to the Unidentified

Japanese Name:

未確認で進行形

Studio:

Doga Kobo

Episodes Watched:

12/12

Posted on:

19/Mar/2019 at 11:16

Both the OP end ED are very good, and I find with a SoL anime, these are usually the things I remember most about the anime... mainly because I'm listening to them more.

Whether it's Lucky Star or K-On, the OP are a lot more prominent in my mind when I think about them than Konata working in a maid cafe, or Yui being... well... Yui. And I feel the really upbeat OP and ED for Mikakunin de Shinkoukei will add to the collection of SoL OP/EDs that stick out amongst the crowd. Sure, the OP for Girlfriend:Beta was good... but it was the only good thing about that series, whereas Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is also a good anime, much like Lucky Star or K-On. So whilst I'll probably forget about Benio in a few months time, whenever I hear the "Sou desu curry wa daikoubutsu desu" in the ED, I'll remember Mashiro not being able to handle the curry Kobeni made for their first meal together.

Whilst there are 4 main characters to the anime, there's only 3 which develop at a smooth pace; Benio, Mashiro, and Kobeni. The forth, Hakuya, has his character development delivered in chunks, the rest of the time he's "just there". 

Whilst I don't think Hakuya is a bad character in any way, and I quite like that we don't know much about him without the story being forced out, it just feels like he is just there. This should go without saying, but spoilers ahead, the way Hakuya acts and feels isn't really like a dog at all. I understand he's meant to be a dog, and the way he acts and shows emotion is just like a dog's. But dogs get super happy when around their owner after being separated, and the same goes for the rest of their "pack". Hakuya doesn't respond like this, most of the time. He's like an old dog, that perks its head up in excitement, instead of running around, almost knocking everything over.


Further to Hakuya being a dog, we don't know whether his sister or his mum, the only two other family members of his we see, are also dogs, or if they are different creatures. Along with this, we see Hakuya being a dog only in Kobeni's memories, we never actually see them transform. Sure we see Mashiro and her mum jumping on rooftops, and Hakuya running at high speed. But never do we see them change. 

There's nothing wrong with them not changing, it just would have been nice to see. They could have explained away that Hakuya couldn't transform due to the power he gave to Kobeni, and Mashiro is still young so it takes her a while to change from human to animal, and back, so it would be a huge inconvenience. But there was no reason as to why we couldn't see them transform to solidify the fact they definitely weren't human.

All in all though, I really liked Mikakunin de Shinkoukei. It was a nice anime, with an ending I didn't see coming. 


But that's it for today. I'm not sure what anime I'll sink my teeth into next. All I know is the one after will be Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maiorita! as I have been reading the manga for that recently, and I thought it was hilarious... Also, after listening to 10 hours of Mya-nee, it would be a disservice not to. But that's for another day, so until then, じゃね!see ya