Kamisama Kazoku
神様家族
God Family
Kamisama Kazoku is a 2006 anime consisting of 13 half hour episodes. This anime can be described as a love comedy. It doesn’t quite fit the Harem Rule.
Samatarou Kamiyama is god’s son and is in the human world for “training.” Tenko (pink hair) is his energetic guardian angel. These two, together with his goddess mother, Venus, and two sisters, Misa and Meme, are all living in the human world, and making Samatarou’s life – not normal. Not to mention his dad. (all the stoplights are switched to walk on Samatarou’s way to school.) The first part of the series is about Samatarou attempting to woo a beautiful transfer student, Kumiko Komori (dark sailor fuku) and his frustration at his family’s supernatural interferences, how he comes to terms with being the son of god, and Tenko’s feelings while attempting to help. The second part deals more with the supernatural like devils, angels, and deities, and how Tenko deals with Samatarou and Kumiko-chan’s relationship. Samatarou also grows up more as a god, beginning to treasure his family more. Explores the concept of allowing hatred to overcome self and redemption.
Despite the description being mostly about Samatarou, Tenko, and Kumiko and their relationships, the title explains it better. It’s about the family, and the family is HILARIOUS. Venus, the mother and high goddess of love, acts very childish, loving cosplay and yoga poses. She embarasses Samatarou horribly, and is incredibly vain about her age and beauty. (gets mad about being called oba-chan) In the end, she is still a charismatic, compassionate mother figure.
Misa is the older sister and a goddess candidate, who loves being in her underwear and manipulating people. She likes laughing at Samatarou’s unfortunate situations. A well-endowed, pretty, tough girl.
Meme is the younger sister and also a goddess candidate. She tries to be a “cool” (emotionless) character, but will sometimes slip up. Enjoys playing pranks.
Osamu, the father, is usually away on god duties, but he is impulsive as well as being all powerful.
The color pallette is vivid, and the animation is alright, (I enjoy watching Fumiko’s movements). The shadows sometimes shift, or don’t shift, whichever is inappropriate. The art is pretty, though. During critical scenes, animation is pretty good. But, animation can get cheap during repetitive scenes. Samatarou’s character development is believable, though Tenko became a bit annoying in her jealousy and simple-mindedness.
I don’t recommend it as a must-see anime, but it is amusing if you like silly hijinks and high school love sitch. The end makes it feel worth watching, and pacing is good.
