Anime Review: Kobato
A young woman named Kobato appears in the city, bereft of memory. She is accompanied by a talking stuffed dog toy named Iorogi (Kobato always mispronounces it as Ioryogi.) It seems that Kobato has a wish she needs to fulfill by healing a number of human hearts, and only has four seasons to complete her mission.
Soon, Kobato meets a tall and grumpy college student named Fujimoto, and takes a job working at Yomogi Kindergarten, where Fujimoto has a part time position. Soon, Kobato’s naive but compassionate nature starts winning over people, but will she be able to heal enough hearts in time?
Kobato is a 2009 anime series based on a manga by popular art collective CLAMP. The art is pretty, and the music is quite nice (Kobato is a skilled singer in-universe.) I was not keen on the main character, who is annoyingly childish and clumsy. (Fujimoto shares that opinion through most of the series.)
For the most part, the series is sweet and heartwarming, and suitable for children. There’s some slapstick violence, mostly from or to Iorogi, who breathes fire, but it seldom does more than make Kobato sooty. He’s also pretty mean to Kobato, in an effort to get her to be more sensible. There are other characters that seem menacing, but turn out to be kinder than they look.
Because CLAMP has the philosophy “all love is good” there are a couple of relationships that are a bit off if you think about them too hard. Also, the theology is a little wonky, which may be tricky for more conservative parents. You may want to skim the series before showing it to your wee ones.
But since there are relatively few anime series that are suitable for both adults and children, it may be worth looking in to.
