Series Review – Kamisama no Memo-chou

God’s Memo Pad – Kamisama no Memo-chou (神様のメモ帳)

For a JC Staff production, Kamimemo turned out to be a surprisingly decent anime. JC Staff in recent years has almost continuously disappointed me, with rare exceptions such as Bakuman and Toradora. That being said, Kamimemo managed to maintain a well-written script for some key arcs to the series, as well as did a good job at fleshing out some of the characters.

However, I can’t help but say that the series was very inconsistent. Kamimemo had it’s amazingly good and memorable arcs, such as the arcs involving Renji and Ayaka, but a majority of the series comprised of some random filler-esque episodes. In other words, there was too much fluff and excess to the story, where cutting down on specific episodes could have brought in a much more streamlined and powerful narrative.

The story does have it’s high points, but they are equally matched by the series’s low points. At least the cast of characters remained consistent throughout the series. The cast started off as relatively underdeveloped and cliche, but the series did go out of it’s way to develop the characters out of that cliche. The result, I’d have to say, is mixed. Characters like Narumi, Ayaka, and Souichirou all got some excellent growth and development throughout the series. On the negative side, almost the entirety of the side cast remained insignificant. The stories devoted to these side characters felt kind of half-assed, and the short length to this series definitely didn’t help there.

In the end, Kamimemo was a rather mixed series. It had it’s high points with some excellent plot, but it also had some random episodes that detracted from the overall impressions of this series. The story stumbled about from time to time, and that’s really what proved to be detrimental. The climactic points to the story were definitely quite good though. In other words, Kamimemo had a lot of potential, but wasted it by adding too much unimportant story segments.

Animation/Art: 8.0/10

Music: 8.0/10

Setting: 7.5/10

Characters: 8.5/10

Story: 8.0/10

Overall Enjoyment: 8.0/10

P.S. One thing that I’m glad about is how JC Staff cut out the random fanservice going into the second half. The fanservice was very out of place in a serious series like this, and not to mention, was giving me Index II vibes all over again. For those that don’t know, Index II’s random fanservice completely messed up a lot of the overall buildup to the series.

Kamisama no Memo-chou – 12 (Final)

Episode 12 Final –

And so Kamimemo ends with a rather predictable finale. And yet it was quite the compelling episode, and did an amazing job at just how far the characters had come in this 12 episode series. The character development is especially notable for Narumi, but Alice also gets a nice bit of development.

The Angel Fix issue was resolved rather quickly, so that wasn’t much of a focus in this episode. More important to note was the rather daring method used by Narumi to track down Angel Fix; by taking the drug himself. Taking the drug did a surprisingly good job at revealing his inner frustrations to the world. Those inner frustrations became even more obvious when he started beating up Ayaka’s brother, and yet he also realizes that nothing will change even if he vented his frustrations. Narumi has really grown up from the meek highschooler he was earlier in the series, and is now a guy who takes on some serious responsibilities.

This development for Narumi has always been a key point to this series, so I’m glad the anime managed to maintain that key issue throughout the time it aired. There were some rather pointless episodes in this series, which could’ve been used for a much more effective story. And yet, Ayaka’s role in this arc proved to be an amazing way to turn him into a much more mature guy. Alice’s role cannot be understated here either, where her sometimes silent support was definitely key to Narumi’s development.

In the end, this series turned out quite surprising. It wasn’t amazing by any means, but at the same time it surprised me with some good characters and a solid story. JC Staff generally hasn’t been able to surprise me in recent years, so Kamimemo was unexpectedly good in that regard. Now all we need is a second season to fully develop Alice, considering how Narumi has gotten his full bit of necessary character growth.

Overall Enjoyment: 4.1/5

P.S. The only thing that bugged me this episode was Alice’s little speech on NEETs. All the NEET talk from her is quite the annoyance, and feels like she’s just trying to make up an excuse for her lifestyle.

Screenshots are later in the post.

Kamisama no Memo-chou – 11

Episode 11 –

Wow, this is really turning out to be quite the impressive episode, which is saying a lot considering how Ayaka had been a rather minor character up until this point. In hindsight, there were quite a few hints at something major happening to Ayaka (her talk about her family in early episodes would be one such indicator). However, I never quite expected such a deep-rooted, darker conflict involving the girl, but her arc has turned out solid so far.

This episode was pretty much just a build-up episode, an episode that’s meant to fully flesh out the character relationships in preparation for the final confrontation. In that sense, we got some great character interactions between the cast. The most notable would be between Narumi and Alice, where you can get a feel for the deep-seated trust that they’ve built throughout the series; the chemistry between the two is rather intricate, yet well balanced.

At the same time, there was a focus on the rest of the NEET squad, and how they’ve come to fully trust Narumi as well. The biggest thing to note, though, is how Narumi himself has changed over the course of the series. He went from an apathetic, “uninvolved bystander” to a determined guy working to set things straight. He’s really gotten a strong, straightforward demeanor in recent episodes.

And his stronger determination will certainly be needed here, where the plot itself continues to grow darker by leaps and bounds. There’s the questions about Ayaka’s brother and his connections to the one who created Angel Fix. More important to ponder over is not how to stop his distribution of Angel Fix, but why in the world is he distributing the drug in the first place? Is there some sort of intangible benefit for this man to openly distribute such dangerous drugs? All humans are (usually) very rational in nature, so they won’t move without a clear benefit. So what is his benefit or motive behind this scheme? And what’s up with the hallucinations Angel Fix users see?

The mystery-aspects to this arc have been rather fascinating so far, and have done a great job in elucidating the sheer breadth and magnitude of the situation. There are subtle little hints throughout the episode as well, all tying back to the past. As for how the finale rolls out, at this point most of the truth seems to have been laid bare, but there are a few standout questions.

Overall Enjoyment: 4.0/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Kamisama no Memo-chou – 10

Episode 10 –

Woah, now this was an unexpected awesome episode. Here we got quite the in depth look at Ayaka and her problems, which culminates into quite a shocking event. The little details and the inferences you can make from them paints a extraordinary picture of Ayaka as a character, as well as provide a solid reason for her attempted suicide at the end of the episode. The attempted suicide may seem random at first, but the devil is truly in the details, and if you examine certain aspects to this episode, her sudden suicide attempt quickly makes a lot more sense.

We are briefly introduced to Ayaka’s brother in the beginning of the episode, where we learn of the Angel Fix drug that’s been going around. What’s very important to note here is how Ayaka does not know that her brother is on drugs, in particular this “Angel Fix” drug. These prove to be critical details to note in this episode, along with one other major detail; Ayaka’s friendly relationship with Narumi. All of this eventually pushes her to attempt suicide, which is a rather tragic way of trying to deal with her troubles.

So we know that Ayaka is unaware of her brother’s drug dependency, but she is aware that her brother is involved in Alice’s new investigation. This in itself causes an uneasy tension for her, as well as for Narumi. She has built up a lot of trust in Narumi as her friend over the course of this series, so the secrets Narumi is hiding from her really hits her hard.

Yet, there are really strong implications that Ayaka herself has some rather dark secrets. The most obvious and important one to note is the greenhouse for the gardening club; why did Ayaka want to prevent Narumi from entering the greenhouse? It’s not like pesticides and stuff are lethal to human beings, and the lethal ones would never be used at a local high school in the first place. Also, based on that phone conversation she had with her brother, Ayaka is implied to have connections with the ones providing her brother with drugs. All of this actually leads to a rather shocking implication, which is that Ayaka is actually growing the plants for Angel Fix in her greenhouse. This makes even more sense when you consider how Alice and Souichiro mentioned how they couldn’t pinpoint the provider/source of Angel Fix. If you think of it this way, everything suddenly makes perfect sense.

Assuming she is indeed growing something horrific in the greenhouse, right off the bat you would assume she would grow extremely depressed after she learned of her brother’s drug dependency. After all, she herself is growing drugs that is slowly killing her own blood-related brother. That in itself is a huge guilt factor, but what really pushes her over the edge is that one key comment Narumi makes to her on the night before her attempted suicide. He pretty much expresses his absolute faith in Ayaka, and holds no suspicions of her at all whatsoever. That in itself was a critical detail that pushed Ayaka’s guilt to the extreme, where she felt that she was betraying Narumi, and which eventually led up to her jumping off the building.

Now, if my wild assumptions that I mention here hold to be true, there is one key question to note that leaves me perplexed; why would Ayaka grow drugs in the first place? Is it because of the family reasons she mentioned back towards the beginning of the series? In any case, this episode did require some inference and critical thinking, but the resulting overall story is a simple yet tragic one. This is a story in which a young girl, who seems to desire a simple and normal life, gets caught up into a guilt-ridden and chaotic scheme that ends up engulfing her in darkness. And this, in itself, is a powerful story.

Overall Enjoyment: 4.3/5

P.S. I just noticed that there is actually a second possibility here, where Narumi’s comment to her ended up convincing her to finally stop growing the drugs. As a result, she was silenced by the group distributing the drugs via forcing her off the building. No better way to hide evidence than to fake a suicide.

Screenshots are later in the post.

Kamisama no Memo-chou – 09

Episode 09 –

With the end of this series fast approaching, I was expecting J.C. Staff to start building up towards a finale. What I didn’t expect was a completely random baseball episode that developed one of the most minor, unimportant characters out of the entire series so far. I mean, I even completely forgot about the yakuza guy (named Nemo) until he popped up as the focus this episode. As of now, I can say that this was 99% filler material, with only the brief mentioning of Ayaka’s troublesome brother worth noticing. I guess this was trying to be a fun episode, but the seriousness to the atmosphere did dampen the fun mood a bit. All in all, this was a terrible lead up to a final arc. If I look at this as a random standalone episode for some amusement, I guess this episode wasn’t too bad.

On the plus side, this episode did show us a rather amusing side to Alice. I had never particularly expected Alice to approach baseball in the manner that she did, and while her antics were rather silly and unorthodox, they did keep the baseball game itself a bit more wild and fun. Seeing Alice in a role other than the simple planner was nice to see, and tried to maintain a fun atmosphere to the setting. Things did get a bit cliche towards the end with Narumi’s little speech to Nemo, but I can’t say it was unexpected.

On a different note, this episode does try to put in a few hints about the next arc, where there are clues pointing towards family problems for the energetic Ayaka. This is a rather surprising little twist in some ways, partly because I never expected Ayaka to have any sort of major family issues. Then again, I do vaguely remember her talking to Narumi about “family” in one of the first few episodes, and in hindsight that discussion was definitely foreshadowing these turn of events. We still don’t know the nature to this family conflict though, which I expect to see in more detail next week.

All in all, this was a rather forgettable yet amusing episode with focus on a unnecessary side character. It’s not that I don’t like Nemo at all, it’s just that there was no need for to suddenly develop his past when we’re so close to the end of this series. This does seem to be leading into a darker-in-tone story arc, with Ayaka’s past playing a key role here. What’s really important at this point is how Narumi, Ayaka, Alice, and the rest of the NEET squad will get involved in the final arc. The execution is key here, where having a solid mix of dialogue and a brisk pacing will be necessary to bring about a fitting end to this series.

Overall Enjoyment: 2.9/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Kamisama no Memo chou – 08

Episode 08 –

The one thing that has really stood out with this arc is the characterization of the main cast. Everybody involved, from Narumi to Alice, to Souichiro and Renji, this arc did an amazing job pushing forward their rather peculiar relationships bit by bit. The chemistry amongst the cast was just great, and on top of that, the music did an excellent job at setting the mood. Narumi does come off as a bit too over-invested in the Renji-Souichiro issue, but aside from that, this episode had some genuine character development. What’s surprised me is how solid the dialogue has become. As for the story itself, the mystery wasn’t exactly the best one out there, but the focus here is really the character interactions that resulted from the mysteries.

Like I already said, the story itself wasn’t anything too special; I actually had guessed most of what had happened by this point. The part where Hison was alive was the only real surprise here, because while I had suspected the possibility that the shopkeeper was her, I would’ve never made the association because of the differing genders. Anyways, what is important here is not the story, but the character interactions that the story pushed forward. The dialogue is surprisingly good at cutting straight to the chase, with some moments of insight that were eye-openers.

What’s really notable here is the chemistry between the cast, mainly Narumi, Alice, Renji, and Souichiro. This episode pretty much solidified the close, and the somewhat quirky, relationship between Narumi and Alice. Throughout this entire ordeal Narumi and Alice relied on each other, and has brought them closer together than before. I guess you can finally call them a real tag-team, where they now hold absolute faith in each other. As for Renji and Souichiro, I’ve come to appreciate the links that bind the two together, Hison and Narumi. Through those two connections Renji and Souichiro fought their own inner battles, as well as questioned their faith in each other. The resolution was quite fitting for the most part, leaving a slightly bittersweet taste behind.

In terms of developing characters, this arc has done a tremendous job with the main culprits involved. It added a layer of complexity to the cast, and will probably continue to have such an effect in the near future. What strikes me as a bit odd, though, is how next week’s episode seems to be a filler episode about baseball. With only three or four more episodes until this series finishes up, the idea of a filler episode feels sorely out of place.

Overall Enjoyment: 4.2/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Quick Impressions – Kamisama no Memochou – 07

Episode 07

Wow, this arc is turning out to be quite impressive. The character development here is just impeccably well done, and the chemistry between the main players in the conflict has been expectional as well. One thing that I definitely feel plays a huge role in this series is the music; it just does a great job at bringing a rather mysterious, delicate and intense atmosphere to the story.

The story itself is something we’ve seen variants of before, but what Kamimemo has been doing is going into tremendous levels of detail to fully flesh out the parties involved. The result is a highly intricate web of details that slowly entangles Souichirou, Renji, and Narumi. I actually had expected this arc to end this episode, but in retrospect I’m glad this episode was used to further develop the conflict even more. This episode really does a terrific job.

On a different note, the relationship between Alice and Narumi is turning out to be quite well-developed as well. Alice is 100% taking up the role of a side character, but she’s analogous to a guidepost for Narumi. She points him in the right direction, all while watching as someone standing by. Yet, it’s quite easy to see the level of trust and care she now has for Narumi, and she does show a level of complexity that is refreshing to see. My only complaint here is that she stops using the idiotic “NEET detective” terms. Seriously, it annoys me like crazy.

Quick Impressions: 4.0/5

Kamisama no Memo-chou – 06

Episode 06 –

After my decreasing amount of faith in this series, it finally delivers something decent, with some amazing chemistry between all the characters involved in the story. And that means great development for Narumi, Alice, and a good chunk of the other side characters involved here. What is a little peculiar about this arc, however, is that Alice is also treated with “side character” status. While she’s getting some decent development, it’s weird how the titular character to the series isn’t really playing a crucial role at all.I guess this all just further emphasizes Narumi and his uncanny desire to interfere with other’s affairs.

But anyways, like I was saying before, this episode does an awesome job with exploiting the character relationships amongst the cast. You can really get a feel for the dynamism in their relationships, where they each hold faith, distrust, and anxiety for each other. The relationship between Renji and the fourth is being slowly revealed, all while giving a very strong sense of history and anger to the unfolding relationship. The level of angst and tension-building feels realistic, and adds a particularly strong sense of pent-up danger to the atmosphere. Alice’s concerns for Narumi definitely play into all of this, where the two main protagonists realize they’re involved in something really deep.

It is a little weird how Narumi is going out of his way to put himself in danger (as Alice notes in the episode), but he is probably involving himself because he does hold faith in both the fourth and Renji. His desire to help them stems from his relationship with the two, though maybe it’s also because he wants to know the root cause to the entire conflict. I honestly can’t say for sure, but Narumi’s perspective on things is definitely changing and maturing in some ways.

I actually wasn’t expecting this arc to be a three-parter, but this second segment did an excellent job in racketing up some tension and buildup in the atmosphere. At the same time, it provided some brief but meaningful insights to the characters involved, and how their actions are pushing the story to unravel. Honestly speaking, this is probably one of the best episodes that this series has thrown out so far. Now with about half of this series now over (it is 12 episodes right?), hopefully we can start seeing some meaningful approaches towards a fitting conclusion.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.8/5

Screenshots are later in the post.

Kamisama no Memo-chou – 05

Episode 05 –

This series seriously seems to be having some identity crisis issues. The first few episodes were all more heavily mystery oriented, all amidst a rather dynamic modern day setting. The initial episodes did a decent job with character development and such, but now this series feels like it’s just randomly exploring things all over the place. From making ramen soup to sarashi thieves, to promoting a indie girl’s bande and doing laundry? Kamimemo is starting to loose it’s coherent overall tone, instead opting to throw in slice of life centered around a tsundere Alice and apathetic Narumi. While I guess this does add to character development, this series is sacrificing a lot of the goodwill that it’s received from the intriguing atmosphere back from the initial few episodes.

What’s odd about this episode is just how random it feels. This trend was visible last week with the sarashi theivery and the ramen soup twists, but this episode takes it to a new level. I never quite expected to see the act of sniffing stuffed animals, doing laundry, going to the zoo to pick up stuffed animals, promoting an indie girls band, and dealing with the yakuza. Seriously, Kamimemo needs to retain some focus here, as opposed to randomly and whimsically trying out a bunch of small slice of life moments.

This lack of focus is really hurting the overall plot here, which in this case revolves around the interference of an opposition yakuza group, as well as a mysterious guy named Hirasaka. There are rather vague hints at a connection between the two. I do have a hunch of how everything is related, but it’s just a guess as of now.

Seriously though, while seeing Narumi run all over the place advertising and checking venues, Alice just sitting around and not doing detective work leaves the story feeling rather odd. For someone who’s supposed to be a center of focus, like Alice, she isn’t really being terribly important to the plot. Well, to be more specific, Alice is getting all the attention for the wrong reasons. The mystery-oriented feeling to this series is rapidly disappearing, and with it, both the setting and the characters are starting to feel much more normal and boring. The key issue here is that Kamimemo is lacking a sense of balance between the slice-of-life moments, and the mystery that this series is supposed to focus on. This lack of balance is proving to be rather detrimental in the long term.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.1/5

P.S. Unfortunately, due to some PC issues I lost all the screenshots I had for this post. I’m too lazy to go retake them all, so for this post I’ll be omitting the screenshots. I apologize to all those that would’ve liked the screenshots.

Kamisama no Memo-chou – 04

Episode 04 –

We got an episode focused on Min-san, which I found rather unexpected. But what was even more of a surprise (and an unwanted one at that) is the fanservicey nature to this installment of Kamimemo. I do appreciate the character development Min-san got here, but I could’ve totally gone without all the underwear and sarashi inclusions. I mean, the focus on the “well endowed” Min-san’s assets aren’t quite that appealing. To be fair, this episode does delve into the father-daughter dynamic between Min-san and her estranged, missing father, and for that I do have to give JC staff some credit. But please, were all the references to bras and underwear really necessary?

The main issues this episode were actually two separate cases, one where some old guy would come in, take a single sip of soup from Min-san’s ramen, and then leave. Right off the bat, he gives off the impression of being quite the gourmet (and picky) ramen eater, which pisses Min-san off. Case number two would be where Min-san’s sarashi is stolen, which has happened on more than one occasion. The stolen sarashi problem just reeks of stalker issues, which ended up being true to a certain extent.

Plain and simple, the guy behind the sarashi incident would be some random underwear fanatic who was pissed because the G-cup sized Min-san refused to wear proper underwear. Queue the facepalm from me. Seriously, they wasted an entire episode on this? =_=;

What I thought was rather half-assed on JC staff’s part was trying to disguise the more interesting issue at hand, the mysterious taste-and-ditch ramen conoisseur, with something as stupid as an underwear thief. This made Min’s character development feel much more rushed, especially towards the end after the revelation that the ramen guy was actually Min’s missing father. While this episode went about the father-daughter relationship in a rather fitting manner, it does not juxtapose too well with the sarashi-stealing antics of this episode.

In the end, this episode did an excellent job in establishing the implicit understanding between Min-san and her father, where you could tell that they have a rather good understanding of each other. Their father-daughter relationship is a bit strained, but it feels all the more fitting with this nostalgic-feeling tension and understanding of each other. While I liked the development Min-san got, why, just why, did JC staff decide to go the pervy route this episode? It just doesn’t fit in that well, and wasn’t terribly funny. Perverted antics are fine in the type of shows that typically have them, but a mystery/intrigue series certainly does not need any excess fanservice.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.2/5

Screenshots are later in the post.