(12ish episodes)
What’s it about ?
Romantic comedy. With zombies.
Characters
Chihiro, our protagonist. Completely obsessed with zombies : he’s got an impressive DVD collection and tons of related toys and props. And yes, he has a zombie-girl fetish. His pet cat just died, so over the last few days he’s been scurrying off to a condemned building and trying experiments from some random book he found somewhere so as to raise it from the dead. Because (1) he was very fond of it, and (2) hey, zombie-cat ! He’s perfectly aware it probably won’t work, but one never knows…
Rea, the title character, a girl who coincidentally screams into a well nearby the same condemned building in order to vent her frustrations. She comes from the very rich Sanka family (they own the local girls’ high school), and finds herself crushed by the weight of expectations. After the two of them meet and become quick friends, she makes it clear she’s willing to run away from her life with him. He turns her down ; he’s only interested in zombie girls. Well, if that’s the only problem…
Rounding up the cast are Chihiro’s family (busy priest father, dead mother, deadpan little sister, friend-zoned cousin), and his few friends at school (including the token perverted best friend, who doesn’t stand out much next to the guy with a zombie-girl fetish). The OP hints we’re also going to see Rea’s family at some point.
Production Values
Wait, did Deen hire someone from SHAFT, or is this director even ANN has never heard of just a Shinbo fanboy ? Okay, this is nowhere near the craziness of the -monogatari series, but it does copiously pick from SHAFT’s usual bag of tricks : long shots, shots from above, close shots on body parts, editing used in a way that punctuates the dialogue, a good use of shading and shot framing to build atmosphere…
Well, whatever, I’m all for techniques that make the most of the medium to improve storytelling becoming more mainstream.
Overall Impression
Hey, this is actually quite good ! I like Chihiro and his sense of humour (Ryohei Kimura’s charisma strikes again), the two leads have chemistry, and the artful direction doesn’t hurt. The setup is intriguing, with a killer cliffhanger (What did Rea actually do ?) that makes you want to come back for more.
Did someone say that out of the four “My Girlfriend is a X” adaptation, one of them should be good ? Well, this seems to be the one.
