manga: Kami-sama Hajimemashita/Kami-sama Kiss Vol 1-13 + anime
I thought I posted this weeks ago, but apparently not. (The Wednesday Reading Meme is terrible for remembering to posting about other book related things.)
Kami-sama Kiss is about a girl, Nanami, who gets kicked out of her house by her father's debt collectors, and later rescues a man in the parks from dogs who have trred him. After she tells the man her story, he kisses her on the forehead and tells her she can stay at his place. When she goes there she learns that his home is actually the shrine of the local land god, and that the man was the land god, Mikage, and that by kissing Nanami, he made her the new land god. Mikage's familiar, a fox youkai named Tomoe, is neither pleased to learn that his master is still playing hooky after running off 25 years before, nor that his new master is a teenaged human.
The series is largely adorable shoujo fluff with a side of angst, though darker elements do start cropping up after a while that give the series a more serious tone at times. Unsurprisingly, there's a romance between Nanami and Tomoe, with a lot of "humans and youkai can never get together!" but it doesn't overpower anything. Nanami spends some time thinking about her feelings for Tomoe, but is generally too busy learning how to be a respectable land god, keeping up with her schoolwork, learning how to do magic, and getting caught up in the antics and troubles of the various other gods, youkai and familiars that she runs into, and is generally pretty pragmatic about things. Tomoe is a bit different from most Cute Demon Boy boyfriends. He's a strict tsakmaster and very much of the "I have a dark and dangerous and angsty past and will be very badass if needed" variety, but he's also very waspish and tsundere, somewhat on the femme side, very sarcastic, and very domestic. The series also has the element I've encountered a few times before where the "servant" is required to obey the "master's" orders, but it doesn't make me uneasy (and I was worried at first that it might) because it very rarely becomes an issue and Nanami gives Tomoe few direct orders.
It's also refreshingly free of romantic triangles and rivals. While there are a variety of attractive people of both genders and varying species floating around (sadly, we see a lot more of the male supporting characters than the female ones, though Nanami has several female friends) there's only one character who has explicit romantic interest in Nanami, but Nanami is oblivious to his interest and he doesn't seem inclined to make an issue of it. There's also a Tengu, Kurama, and a snake familiar, Mizuki, who may or may not be interested in Nanami, but it's hard to tell whether or not they are interested, or if they just enjoy annoying Tomoe by acting like they are.
So, for a couple volumes when he's first realizing that he has feelings for Nanami, Tomoe gets...weird? Like, he'll start to do something or almost do something or think about it (like looking at her when she sleeps or touching/hugging her or suddenly flipping out over her laundry even though he always does it) but it last about two panels and he realizes he shouldn't/that it's inappropriate and figuratively goes off to a corner to scold himself for being inappropriate, and if Nanami notices he's being weird, her reaction is either "WILL YOU STOP THAT WITH THE MIXED SIGNALS!" or "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" depending on which is more appropriate at the time. So it kind of...hints at things that would bug me, but never crosses the line and then berates itself for bringing up the possibility? I just wish it wouldn't make me wonder. Then there's an instance in volume 13 where Tomoe gets agressive because someone else is inhabiting Nanami's body (long story) and is trying to chase them out and it's just...weird. (And Nanami rightly freaks out on him for it when she's back in control of her body.)
Then there's an instance where the familiar contract is broken, and the contract can only be activated by a kiss, and Nanami asks Tomoe if he's going to reinstate it and he says no, then later kisses her while she's sleeping to reinstate it. Which, dude, no matter how conflictd you might be feeling, wait until she wakes up. Though, in all fairness, i'm not sure that would have registered half as much if the snake familar, Mizuki, hadn't forced the familar bond on Nanami while she was sleeping, and without her ever having even implied she wanted a second familiar. (Mizuki is just kind of weird and sometimes creepy in general, and while I suppose he makes a good foil, I don't miss him when he disappears for a while.)
Then there's also a subplot where Tomoe was apparently in love with human woman, Yukiji, in the past, but doesn't remember it because of a spell. There's apparently going to be more focus on that, given events in volume 13, but between the time travel that we've already had a couple times and the family legend that women in Nanami's family only ever have one daughter and no sons, I'm starting to think that Nanami either travels back in time and is Yukiji, or is Yukiji's reincarnation.
And then there's the anime. The anime is adorable, upbeat, happymaking fluff. It only covers the first few volumes of the manga, and so ends before we get into the more serious elements, but my only issue is that even in those parts, Nanami seems to use magic less than she does in the manga. Which isn't to say that she's passive in any way in the anime, they just cut back on the part where she's literally a god now, minor land god or otherwise. One thing in the anime that far that the manga can never match, though, is the way Kurama is introduced anytime he shows up. Kurama is a tengu who left his mountain as a smal child and has lived as a human ever since. He's now a popular jpop star and actor, and every time he appears, he gets and explosion of lights and a rousing jpop song plays in the background while his fans start screaming. The manga gives him dazzling entrances too, but it just can't compare to the explosion of light and sound in the anime, which made me burst out laughing every time it happened.
Kami-sama Kiss is about a girl, Nanami, who gets kicked out of her house by her father's debt collectors, and later rescues a man in the parks from dogs who have trred him. After she tells the man her story, he kisses her on the forehead and tells her she can stay at his place. When she goes there she learns that his home is actually the shrine of the local land god, and that the man was the land god, Mikage, and that by kissing Nanami, he made her the new land god. Mikage's familiar, a fox youkai named Tomoe, is neither pleased to learn that his master is still playing hooky after running off 25 years before, nor that his new master is a teenaged human.
The series is largely adorable shoujo fluff with a side of angst, though darker elements do start cropping up after a while that give the series a more serious tone at times. Unsurprisingly, there's a romance between Nanami and Tomoe, with a lot of "humans and youkai can never get together!" but it doesn't overpower anything. Nanami spends some time thinking about her feelings for Tomoe, but is generally too busy learning how to be a respectable land god, keeping up with her schoolwork, learning how to do magic, and getting caught up in the antics and troubles of the various other gods, youkai and familiars that she runs into, and is generally pretty pragmatic about things. Tomoe is a bit different from most Cute Demon Boy boyfriends. He's a strict tsakmaster and very much of the "I have a dark and dangerous and angsty past and will be very badass if needed" variety, but he's also very waspish and tsundere, somewhat on the femme side, very sarcastic, and very domestic. The series also has the element I've encountered a few times before where the "servant" is required to obey the "master's" orders, but it doesn't make me uneasy (and I was worried at first that it might) because it very rarely becomes an issue and Nanami gives Tomoe few direct orders.
It's also refreshingly free of romantic triangles and rivals. While there are a variety of attractive people of both genders and varying species floating around (sadly, we see a lot more of the male supporting characters than the female ones, though Nanami has several female friends) there's only one character who has explicit romantic interest in Nanami, but Nanami is oblivious to his interest and he doesn't seem inclined to make an issue of it. There's also a Tengu, Kurama, and a snake familiar, Mizuki, who may or may not be interested in Nanami, but it's hard to tell whether or not they are interested, or if they just enjoy annoying Tomoe by acting like they are.
So, for a couple volumes when he's first realizing that he has feelings for Nanami, Tomoe gets...weird? Like, he'll start to do something or almost do something or think about it (like looking at her when she sleeps or touching/hugging her or suddenly flipping out over her laundry even though he always does it) but it last about two panels and he realizes he shouldn't/that it's inappropriate and figuratively goes off to a corner to scold himself for being inappropriate, and if Nanami notices he's being weird, her reaction is either "WILL YOU STOP THAT WITH THE MIXED SIGNALS!" or "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" depending on which is more appropriate at the time. So it kind of...hints at things that would bug me, but never crosses the line and then berates itself for bringing up the possibility? I just wish it wouldn't make me wonder. Then there's an instance in volume 13 where Tomoe gets agressive because someone else is inhabiting Nanami's body (long story) and is trying to chase them out and it's just...weird. (And Nanami rightly freaks out on him for it when she's back in control of her body.)
Then there's an instance where the familiar contract is broken, and the contract can only be activated by a kiss, and Nanami asks Tomoe if he's going to reinstate it and he says no, then later kisses her while she's sleeping to reinstate it. Which, dude, no matter how conflictd you might be feeling, wait until she wakes up. Though, in all fairness, i'm not sure that would have registered half as much if the snake familar, Mizuki, hadn't forced the familar bond on Nanami while she was sleeping, and without her ever having even implied she wanted a second familiar. (Mizuki is just kind of weird and sometimes creepy in general, and while I suppose he makes a good foil, I don't miss him when he disappears for a while.)
Then there's also a subplot where Tomoe was apparently in love with human woman, Yukiji, in the past, but doesn't remember it because of a spell. There's apparently going to be more focus on that, given events in volume 13, but between the time travel that we've already had a couple times and the family legend that women in Nanami's family only ever have one daughter and no sons, I'm starting to think that Nanami either travels back in time and is Yukiji, or is Yukiji's reincarnation.
And then there's the anime. The anime is adorable, upbeat, happymaking fluff. It only covers the first few volumes of the manga, and so ends before we get into the more serious elements, but my only issue is that even in those parts, Nanami seems to use magic less than she does in the manga. Which isn't to say that she's passive in any way in the anime, they just cut back on the part where she's literally a god now, minor land god or otherwise. One thing in the anime that far that the manga can never match, though, is the way Kurama is introduced anytime he shows up. Kurama is a tengu who left his mountain as a smal child and has lived as a human ever since. He's now a popular jpop star and actor, and every time he appears, he gets and explosion of lights and a rousing jpop song plays in the background while his fans start screaming. The manga gives him dazzling entrances too, but it just can't compare to the explosion of light and sound in the anime, which made me burst out laughing every time it happened.