Kannagi

When he was a child and out catching bugs, Jin Mikuriya fatefully encountered a deity, which became the inspiration for his newest piece of art: The Tree Spirit. Trying to think of a way to bring the wooden statue to school, Jin believes that the rest of the day will be spent admiring his work. But before he can even lift it, the sculpture begins to absorb the earth around it and explodes into a cute girl!

The girl, Nagi, who introduces herself as a guardian of the earth, proclaims that Jin must help her get rid of the "impurities" that plague the land. But alas, due to Nagi's tree being cut down and her powers completely drained, she finds herself cleansing the impurities with only a magical wand! With their lives now intertwined, Jin and Nagi find ways to learn more about one another through the endless amounts of daily antics.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Nagi Main

Tomatsu, Haruka Japanese

Zange Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Aoba, Tsugumi Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Mikuriya, Jin Main

Shimono, Hiro Japanese

Akiba, Meguru Supporting

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

Kimura, Takako Supporting

Hayamizu, Risa Japanese

Hibiki, Daitetsu Supporting

Hoshino, Takanori Japanese

Lolikko Cutie Supporting

MAKO Japanese

Maid Cafe Manager Supporting

Ootsuka, Houchuu Japanese

Kamimori, Mr. Supporting

Tachiki, Fumihiko Japanese

Iwakami, Atsuhiro Producer

Ochikoshi, Tomonori Producer

Shimizu, Akira Producer

Yamamoto, Yutaka Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Oct 16, 2009

Skadi

Recommended

At first glance Kannagi might appear to be just yet another school harem romance comedy and for the most part that’s about all it is. However once you start it becomes apparent that there is a little more to it to separate it from a genre that is overcrowded by bland and average titles.

The premise is pretty typical of any other show of this type, only the names and the origins ever seem to change. Though I did find it to be a bit unique with this one. Our lead Jin Mikuriya has just completed a wooden sculpture of a tree ... spirit he saw as a boy for his art class. Shockingly the statue dematerializes and substituted in its place is a girl, Nagi. Nagi claims to be the god of this area and an amnesiac who needs Jin's help to purge the area of impurities that have arisen because the sacred tree she was bound to has been chopped down. It’s an amusing start and Nagi herself is instantly lovable as a character.

Kannagi's story though soon gets off track. Instead of developing the stories premise it stars to meander along and becomes basically a slice of life comedy. Some interesting plot elements that are brought up early seem to be pushed aside and forgotten about altogether. The ending is also slightly disappointing in that it changes focus again and gets serious and doesn’t really end decisively. What saves it though is that I really didn’t care because Nagi and many of the supporting cast are just so much damn fun. There is a lot of great comedy and even though I complain about the poor plot development the episodes, particularly in the middle part of the series, are extremely amusing. That’s the real charm of Kannagi is that despite it being shallow it has a special feeling about it that makes it stand above most other series of this genre. Kannagi also manages to be titillating and sexy without resorting to tasteless fan service. If you’re hoping for a bevy of boobs and panty shots you’re going to be extremely disappointed.

As with most harem shows the most interesting characters are usually the harem itself and not the male lead. Kannagi's appeal begins and ends with Nagi. She carried the show and makes it as interesting as it is. I find it doubtful that anyone watching this wont love her from the start. Her personality oozes out from every scene she’s in. Overall I thought she was pretty unique, moe without being helpless, tsundere without becoming the typical stereotype, and a quirky weirdness without coming across as a Haruhi clone. Sadly though because of the shows plot failures and slice of life pacing through the middle episodes we just don’t get enough back-story and development a character of this importance deserves.

For the rest of the harem the reviews are mixed. Though I found all of them amusing and enjoyable several are archetypes that frankly I am becoming a bit tired of, namely Tsugumi. You know who she is; the childhood friend who's in love with and secretly pines for the lead. (usually a tsundere though in this case she’s not) Girl, I have no sympathy for you. Admit your damn feelings already or get out of the way! Zange was also a tired and overused archetype. She was also poorly developed as none of the issues regarding her characters situation are ever satisfactorily addressed or resolved. Among the supporting cast, Takako steals the show. As the perverted otaku type she manages to be very funny without feeling like a cliché.

Finally Jin is adequate as the lead. He manages to not be the dull weakling who has no business attracting this harem of beautiful girls. Though he certainly has some of those character attributes, I found him to be amusing and interesting. There is great chemistry between him and Nagi and I really enjoyed watching them interact with one another. Again as with Nagi, there is very little overall development of his character which was disappointing.

The styling and animation in Kannagi was excellent. It’s one of the big appeals to this show. I loved Nagi's look and the settings and fashion designs were really cute. The voice cast is outstanding and in my opinion the OP animation and musical number is one of the best I have ever seen. If you watch it and don’t come away wanting to see more then I seriously question your judgment.

Kannagi is light on substance but high on enjoyment. I recommend this show to anyone who is looking for a few hours of mindless entertainment. Despite its failures with plot and some tired overused character types it stands out as a show that shouldn’t be missed.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 3, 2009

Credulous

Mixed Feelings

Kannagi. But first:

One thing I'm going to say about anime in general is that endings, the conclusion to a show, to an anime that satisifies many people are hard to come by. In truth most animes I have seen, even the ones I rate highly have fairly bad endings. Most of the time it's because the manga isn't finished so the anime producers have a hard time ending an anime in a satisfactory manner due to that and they simply have no idea how to end it. It can also be a question of money, perhaps they had a too tight budget, perhaps production expenses ... were too high (ex. KareKano).

Now to relate this to Kannagi; Kannagi had a worthless ending. Now I recieved a very ambitious comment about how I don't go into detail about the animes I write reviews about, but what is there to say about a worthless ending? It was unfinished, it was unsatisfactory and it did not fit and the thing is it wasn't even the very end that made the bad ending. If you strap on your criticizing goggles for a minute and think back on the climax before the conclusion to this anime, didn't it feel unnatural to the story?

Something I've noticed of late about almost any anime, that contains these or similar themes, is that they all suffer from the same syndrome; "interesting first episode passes over to the thing we've seen 100 times before it ends in something rushed and fairly blurry, often with some sort of flashback/narrating touchy-feely thing". Yea it's a copyright-pending expression. This anime was no exception.

Still I was entertained from time to time by this anime. It had some nice touches and a few of the characters weren't half bad. They pulled off making characters irrelevant to the story amusing enough to be forgiven for bad character development which is always a plus, especially when making an anime 13 episodes long. The animation and art are good in Kannagi, but it is only to be expected of the producers and animation producers of this show. I don't regret having seen Kannagi, but the entire anime feels like fanservice when fanservice isn't called for. Watch when/if you have the time and want the occasional laugh.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Aug 12, 2022

Sii_Kei

Not Recommended

Take your typical spineless male protagonist, throw at him a beautiful, immature and almighty goddess and the obligatory annoying childhood friend that has a crush on said male. Add then the evil twin sister of the afore-mentioned almighty goddess that dresses as a nun (because apparently Japanese people find that sexy), surround all of them with some potentially interesting, yet never quite exploited obscure secondary characters and wrap everything up in a fairly pleasant animation, with a commercial theme song. What do we get? Kannagi –a mediocre show that's not particularly bad, yet never gets close to being good either.

Kannagi starts off of an ... interesting premise –Mikuriya Jin, a high school student, carves a sculpture from a holy tree which later turns into the goddess of the area, Nagi. Because people nowadays do not believe in gods as much and because her tree was cut, Nagi is very weakened, and must get rid of roaches –erm, impurities. So far, so good. If only they'd actually follow that plot.
Unfortunately, Kannagi seemed to have decided that that is not a successful money bringing strategy, and resorted to your typical ecchi comedy/slice of life/high school anime subplots. You know them; Nagi living with Jin, pretending to be his half-sister (giving a chance to reuse the same over-repeatedly gag of other characters wondering whether they really act towards each other as siblings); the love triangle-square-pentagon whatever (after the presumably gay relationship between Jin and his best friend it really isn't clear anymore); and of course, the obligatory episodes of said genre –bra buying, karaoke singing and so on. Now these might seem exciting if you're new to this kind of anime; sadly, after seeing 20+ series of the same sort, you really cannot help but blame Kannagi for the lack of innovation. What about romance then? Pff, that's really nothing but a lame excuse to bring lots and lots of fanservice. Because why not?

In the end, I'd only recommend this series to people who are generally new to anime and haven't experienced all the cliches this certain genre carries with it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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