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Let me preface the review by saying I detest children in anime because they are either extremely obnoxious and/or they are designed and shown as overly cute to obviously manipulate the viewers emotions. I also hate tsundere characters because of how irritating and violent they are towards other characters turning them into crappy one note characters.

Barakamon is perhaps one of the rarest shows that not only manages to circumvent it but makes a person like me, who hates annoying kids and tsunderes in anime, fall in love with the show.

It centers on protagonist Seishuu Handa, a 23 year old genius calligrapher who gets exiled to ... the countryside due to an unfortunate incident. He has always been absorbed in his work and competitions to such a degree that his social life is 0 with him having only one friend. He is that handsome guy you wonder about why he doesn't have a relationship with anything other than his work. Now Handa is a tsundere but his portrayal goes beyond the typical violent cliche that plagues anime/manga nowadays. He's tsundere in all the right ways and this makes his reactions and expressions even more fun to watch.

The deuteragonist of the show, Naru, a 7 year old tomboy is remarkable in herself because her character never manipulates the viewer into feeling any of the typical emotions related to one-note kids in anime. She helps Seishuu see a world beyond calligraphy and he creates a bond with her that alleviates her loneliness in a way even the villagers cannot.

The supporting cast is fun as well so in the interest on not spoiling anything, I'll just say enjoy them as and when Seishuu meets them.

The show is pure slice of life. Don't expect anything else from it - drama, romance, action etc are not there and the show is all the more better for it.

I just want to tell everyone to watch this show now. It has hidden life lessons that don't get beaten over your head and you go on a memorable and very charming journey with the most unlikeliest pair of characters in a long, long time.

What garbage. The show failed as a slice of life and it failed as a musical. There was uneven and poor slice of life development. There was not enough music in the episodes for it to be a musical.

One girl's arc took half the show to resolve which left the others to get over their issues in just a single episode. Hell, the show had zero camaraderie to speak of between the characters. The male characters felt like female characters who were changed so as to differentiate it from other female only shows. Their development was shafted hard and got crap treatment.

For 13 ... episodes it felt like absolutely nothing happened. The small girl was damn annoying and the lame as hell ending was downright cliched but of course what else could I expect from a show that failed on all levels.

The only good thing I can say is that the characters had nice voices.

You might wonder why I rated it so low. It's simply because the entire premise of the show is highly misleading and baits people who otherwise would never watch such shows into watching it for the wrong reasons.

I should have watched this 3 years ago instead of now. I regret everything.