Short, Objective Review

Mikakunin de Shinkoukei (lit: Engaged to the Unidentified) is a bite-size anime adaptation of an ongoing slice of life non-harem romance manga that actually manages to pull it off. It’s above average in general, and its animation style and cast of characters make it enjoyable to watch all the way throughout its short twelve-episode length. Unfortunately, Mikakunin is unable to flesh out every single introduced character enough to make them likable by the end, though this may be more due to the fact that it’s a short adaptation of a larger, ongoing work. The longer, more subjective, rambling review follows. Spoilers ahead.

Introduction

Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is a series that I had known about for a long time, but it was a series that I had never intended to watch. Since my opinion of the series stemmed almost purely from badly-trimmed tumblr gifs of a dancing elementary-schooler, I didn’t bother paying it much attention. Eventually (probably not nearly as long a period of that time as that word would imply), I was linked the opening theme by Irru. It was a cute song and animation so I saved it and would listen to it occasionally, with the usual vaguely guilty feeling I get when I listen to music from a work that I never watched myself.

And then recently, Irru sent me links to scenes from the series and off-handedly let me know that the series was a non-harem romance. Considering I was and still am recovering from Nisekoi ending, that sounded like an outright godsend. Coupled with the still-vague feeling of needing to watch a series to properly enjoy its music, I immediately picked up all of the episodes and resolved to begin watching as soon as I was able. After all, even I need a break from drinking in all of the drama from the No Man’s Sky hype bomb (and I have not and will not play NMS, so don’t expect any review).

I found myself enjoying Mikakunin de Shinkoukei a lot. It appealed to me because of its funny-yet-focused slice of life scenes, and of course the romance was also excellent. The OP and ED were both very good (I never once skipped either of them as I watched), and the soundtrack, though not what I would call stand-out incredible, was decent and certainly didn’t take away from the scenes. The animation quality was surprisingly top-notch, and the voice acting was amazing. I have a few gripes about a few things, but all-in-all Mikakunin is a great, short series for people who enjoy a good coupling of romance and comedy.

Translation

I watched the fansub of Mikakunin de Shinkoukei as done by [Underwater]. I have no idea who they are; I’ve never heard of them but it’s not like I’m particularly familiar with the fansubbing scene anyway.

Translation was fine. I remember having a few complaints about minor translation errors, but the only one I can remember specifically is a scene where “loneliness” was translated as “sadness,” which is a something I would mark wrong if I were administering a translation test. There were subs for both OP and ED, and I think the subs also adequately translated important background stuff like signs and SFX.

Not bad.

Characters and Relationships

I feel that Mikakunin‘s greatest strength is its characters, though unfortunately it might be where I have the most complaints. Almost every character introduced is cute and unique, and mostly not so quirky as to give the more slice of life aspects of the series an unnatural feel.

First off, Hakuya is the male lead of the series. I won’t call him the main character, as he’s not the viewpoint character, though we do get to see his thoughts on occasion. He’s extremely quiet and to be honest almost falls into flat character territory. Most of his characterization comes from Kobeni’s understanding of his actions and moods, which of course also serves the purpose of developing the relationship between the two. He avoids coming across as a doormat character through his pointed and clearly-stated worry for Kobeni and Mashiro’s well-beings, as well as the few scenes where he puts his foot down when he needs to. He is—first and foremost—defined by his devotion to Kobeni, to the point where it seems to be lampshaded at points. This is all somewhat justified by his true nature, but it still comes off as unusual when he’s compared to his younger sister Mashiro, who is also the same kind of creature but has far more traits and quirks that differentiate her from a background NPC. However, perhaps there’s a level of fridge logic involved in that it reflects the wide variance in temperaments between individual dogs. But despite this lack of depth, Hakuya is more or less impossible to dislike, as every single one of his few actions clearly state his feelings toward Kobeni or Mashiro, and his reactions to the relationship challenges that Mashiro pushes him into are very easy to empathize with. He makes clear in as few words as possible that he cares deeply about those around him, and has both the motivation and ability to keep the important people in his life safe and happy.

Kobeni is the viewpoint character of the show, and it’s a nice choice (yes, I know that the anime is based on a pre-existing manga, so this praise may or may not be directed at the right people). The plot of Mikakunin is the archetypal “ordinary life turned topsy-turvy by strange new arrivals” plot, and Kobeni holds up to all trope expectations by playing the part of the somewhat-exasperated and resigned host. She has backstory details that result in her speaking extremely formally to her mother and older sister (namely, her sister somehow conditioned her into speaking that way), but for all intents and purposes she’s a pretty normal high school girl with a few insecurities. She’s kind and good at cooking and other household chores, so mentally she’s pretty much a typical yamato nadeshiko, which is whatever. She’s not weak-willed however, as she’s quite firm when she needs to be. Though the main point here is that she’s quite cute. It’s one thing to have a non-harem romance series, but it’s another thing altogether to have a non-harem romance series where the main girl is actually a joy to watch. Kobeni’s interactions with Hakuya, in addition to being absolutely laced with unsubtle foreshadowing, are cute and heartwarming. There’s another emotion in there that I find somewhat difficult to define that’s specific to the scenes where Kobeni can perfectly understand Hakuya’s current mood just by looking at him. It’s an amazingly cute addition to the way their relationship progresses that once again foreshadows Hakuya’s true nature as well as adding a somewhat unique tint to interactions that no other character would really be able to replicate in-series. Also, for whatever reason I really like the way she talks to Hakuya and Mashiro. It’s hard to explain in English, but it’s a really informal tone that’s totally at odds with the way she acts, with open, drawn-out sentence enders.

Mashiro is Hakuya’s younger sister, and is a hilariously prideful little girl who does her best to be taken seriously in all matters while constantly being tempted by fun distractions and a new, exciting environment. A cute character in a different way from Kobeni (obviously), it’s fun to watch her run around and her obsession with UMAs that pops up toward the latter half of the series is weird, but hilarious. She serves the important role of being an expositor for Hakuya’s motives and their family’s situation and details, as well as being the one to push the complacent Hakuya into action for the purpose of furthering his relationship with Kobeni. Without Mashiro, Mikakunin‘s story would go nowhere, as well as be significantly more boring. She is also the most openly supernatural character in the series, having less qualms than Hakuya about using her powers to get what she needs. As someone who more or less detests supernatural elements in otherwise unreleated genres, I found that Mashiro’s level of off-screen ability is probably the most I’m willing to compromise when it comes to supernatural hand-wavery. Actually, I’m beginning to think that I have a personal bias toward Japanese mythologies with stuff like youkai, but I’m not too sure as of yet. Anyway, Mashiro is a funny, memorable character whose eccentricities don’t overwhelm the presence of the other characters and whose running gags are funny even when they come to be predictable (case in point: the whole Nessie thing).

Benio is Kobeni’s older sister and to be honest she’s where most of my complaints about this series are directed. Benio is the ace, the perfect older sister who provides a source of maybe-conflict for Kobeni because of how absurdly perfect she is. Which isn’t the part that I have complaints about. I think a character like that is just fine for a comedic slice of life series, and I actually thought the scenes she had that showcased such traits were actually pretty funny. No, my gripes with Benio comes mainly from the other side of her character. She’s absolutely obsessed with little sisters. I can imagine Benio being a polarizing character for the viewerbase, and it seems that I’m rooted firmly in the “I wish she weren’t in this series” side. I understand that Benio forms the necessary fourth vertex of the main tetrangle of characters in the series. She’s needed in the same way Mashiro is, as she’s an expository character that’s more sympathetic to Kobeni’s curiosity regarding the past, as well as the fact that it would be somewhat awkward to fill a house with just the main girl and a fiancé with his younger sister. The comedy sequences in the series would likely feel somewhat empty without the characters that form a satellite cast around her, such as Nadeshiko’s no-nonsense approach to her and Konoha’s unusually driving fixation on her. Her presence and actions are also most likely key to us seeing a lot of the aspects of Mashiro’s character that she would otherwise endeavour to keep hidden, and the scene where Mashiro instantly rips up her invitation letter in front of Benio actually made me laugh out loud. However, I generally found Benio’s actions toward Kobeni and Mashiro annoying, particularly toward the end of the series. It’s probably because I came into the series as someone who wanted romance moreso than slice of life comedy, but I found her presence in many scenes toward the end disruptive and unnecessary. I understand that she’s protective of her younger sister, but possessive seems to be a word far more fitting toward the end. She comes across as selfish and unreasonable, and ruins more than a few scenes that show the developing relationship between Kobeni and Hakuya. And I guess that her use of 2chan terminology was supposed to be funny, but apparently I still possess some level of [archaic] Japanese sensibilities, as it just made me dislike her further and made it harder to empathize with her. Benio is a necessary character, but I wish that she had perhaps been taken in a few other directions, or at least had her big-sister-syndrome trait toned down a bit. It’s hard to even call her flanderized toward the end, as it was only over the span of twelve episodes. There also seems to be room for character development, as she seems to be beating herself up over Kobeni’s accident, but the point is brought up only briefly at around the midpoint of the series and never comes up again. Perhaps there’s more to it in the manga, but the anime seems to make her into this bizarre gremlin-like character toward the end, and I found it pretty obnoxious.

As for the other characters, they’re all pretty nice. It seemed like there were too many character introduced to properly make use of them all, but that’s just par for the course when it comes to anime adaptations of ongoing slice of life manga. They all play off of each other in funny ways, and though I feel that were quite a lot of them, I don’t think that any of them were a waste to introduce or particularly redundant.

Plot

Mikakunin‘s plot is super typical. Kobeni, on her sixteenth birthday, finds out that she has a fiancé and he and his younger sister are going to be moving in to live with her and her older sister. Hakuya, the aforementioned fiancé, turns out to be rather unusual, if devoted, and the series eventually adds a splash of the supernatural. There’s not much to write home about when it comes to the plot details, it’s nothing more than a vehicle for the interactions between Kobeni and Hakuya.

The relationship between Kobeni and Hakuya is very nice to watch progress. Kobeni starts out more or less exasperated with the whole situation of being engaged to him, and most of her opinion can be summed up as “well, he doesn’t seem like a bad guy, at least.” As the series goes on, she takes note of him constantly as someone watching over her, concerned for her well-being, and begins to realize that she’s developed a deeper-level understanding of his moods and mannerisms, to the point where she can read the emotions behind his deadpan gaze just by looking at him. All the while, details of what happened between them in the past are uncovered, which change the way she looks at him. As the series goes on and she becomes more and more comfortable with Hakuya’s presence, events unfold that force her to consider how she feels about Hakuya and their relationship. It’s a classic sequence for a reason, and as always I’m a sucker for love epiphanies. The last episode is a satisfying climactic plot that’s not too at odds with the rest of the series, and the ending exchange between the two really pulls at the heartstrings.

In addition to the romance, there’s a supernatural element introduced slightly-before-midway through the series that seems adds the exotic atmosphere that most romance series seem to feel they need to have nowadays. As cynical as I am about stuff like that, I have to admit Mikakunin did it quietly enough that I didn’t really mind it. The halfway-point reveal is that Hakuya and Mashiro are more-or-less youkai, with absurd physical abilities and some supernatural abilities. The implications behind this reveal are so downplayed within the series that I actually found it somewhat funny, and I was very happy that it didn’t turn into some kind of bizarre mononoke drama fest. In addition, I enjoyed the more subtle aspects of the foreshadowing done about Hakuya’s past relationship with Kobeni, such as the disparity in Kobeni’s eye colour between the present and flashback scenes.

Pacing-wise, I think Mikakunin is a very good example of a well-paced adaptation of a currently ongoing longer series. It doesn’t rush headlong into a hamfisted ending, and builds relationships steadily and carefully. The ending of the anime is by no means a tying of the knot, but it’s definitely significant and satisfying progress and doesn’t really force the viewer to immediately pull up the manga to satisfy themselves after a particularly open-ended conclusion.

Other Details

Mikakunin‘s animation was really, really good. I liked the round, soft character design that used plenty of white highlights, which nicely complemented the slightly pastel colour palette used throughout. I didn’t notice any weird off-model scenes, and in fact a few scenes were animated in extremely high fidelity, such as the scene where Kobeni goes to look for Mashiro or the scene where Mashiro and Konoha have their standoff after jumping off the rooftop. The animation for those scenes were more-or-less movie quality, and I was very impressed.

The soundtrack was, as described above, decent. I really enjoy watching and listening to the OP and ED, though the second-to-last episode had a bit of a jarring transition from its very serious ending to the very upbeat and silly ending song. I liked the vocal song that plays as Kobeni travels in the last episode, and I vaguely remember the music being noteworthy during particularly intense or emotional sequences.

Conclusion and Final Score

Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is a short, fun, and cute series that I watched while in a vague depression over not having any interesting romance series to watch or read. I watched it in three sittings, in 3/5/4 episode chunks. It was a lot of fun to watch, and I liked it a lot, though I don’t feel that it was earth-shatteringly good. It feels like it was nice for the amount of time invested, but in the end it’s mostly memorable to me as a good non-harem romance series that I watched at a point in my life where I needed it.

The characters, though probably the strongest facet of the series, suffer from the fact that the anime is an adaptation of pre-existing slice of life series, and I kinda really dislike Benio in general. I wouldn’t say the series is badly-paced enough to be what I call too short, but I would definitely not be against watching a second season. All-in-all, it’s an above-average series of a genre that I personally enjoy a lot, which means that, as usual, a ton of personal bias went into this review.

I give Mikakunin de Shinkoukei a 7.5.