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Nakahito is a prepubescent Onmyou mystic-in-training who, due to some urging by the local punks, wanders into an abandoned
lab. There, he accidentally awakens the bubbly android Kurumi with a kiss and is suddenly subjected to an energetic,
pink-haired android calling him “master”, glomping him, and trying to do everything for him, no matter how major or minor
the task. However, the military had special plans for Kurumi, and they want her back.
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Reading ADV’s gush about this series, you’d expect it to be the best anime series to reach American shores. However, after
actually watching this series, I was left somewhat content but begging to differ with the box summary, as I have seen too
many series that were better than this one. Steel Angel Kurumi is a fun and fairly cute anime, but it fails to
fully separate itself from every other series of its kind.
After watching the first few episodes, I was easily able to pick up the general feel of the series. The atmosphere seems
to be covered by a veil of cotton candy when Kurumi is the center of focus, but when action scenes or serious times move
their way to center-stage, the cutesy mood appropriately moves into the background. The characters are stock but likeable
and a couple of character interactions seem a bit random and unnecessary, such as the way Saki acted toward Kurumi, but not
enough to severely detract from the series. The backgrounds and character designs are well done, the animation is fresh
and clean, and Enomoto Atsuko puts a pleasantly ditzy life into Kurumi.
There were some flaws with Steel Angel Kurumi, however, and the major one had to do with a large plot twist near the
end of the series, which appeared with no previous warning or foreshadowing whatsoever. It didn’t clash with the already
established world the previous episodes had set up, but any other surprising twist could have been used to explain the
situation of the series and barely anything would have changed. The episode format (each is fifteen minutes long) does
work with the earlier, more light-hearted episodes, but later it begins to get aggravating to have to go through the
ending and beginning theme songs again to get to part two of a fight. There’s also the typical problem with out-of-place
fan service that seems to be common in this breed of anime.
Despite the somewhat disconnected plot twists and the fan service that sometimes ruins otherwise serious moods of parts of
the series, Steel Angel Kurumi is fun from beginning to end. Although you may not be terribly surprised by what
happens, it’s worthy of your time while you’re waiting for your Grave of the Fireflies DVD to be shipped.
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