Kannagi

Rating: 4 (of 5) ~ means it was very good! (<added by mod ^_^)

Review:
Well, this is a pleasant surprise! Normally, when a hapless young man accidentally summons a live-in goddess, one's first instinct is to call up Kosuke Fujishima and tell him it's time to deploy the copyright lawyers. But Kannagi is a textbook example of how to dust off an overdone idea and make it fun again. This time our hapless young man is Jin Mikuriya, who carves a female figure into a wood block cut from a sacred tree—and brings out an actual tree-spirit! But this goddess, who calls herself Nagi, is no Belldandy: she goes nuts when she discovers her tree was cut down, thinks she can exorcise impurities with a toy magical-girl wand, decides that taiyaki is better than actual fish, and doesn't quite get the definition of a phone. Jin, meanwhile, is shocked to find that—in his own words—"Even gods go to the toilet."

What makes Kannagi stand out from other boy-meets-übergirl comedies is the perfectly controlled bursts of energy: for every crazy wacky Nagi moment, there is an even funnier deadpan silence where Nagi and Jin look at each other like idiots contemplating the world. That zany, unpredictable rhythm—always darting between fast and slow—is what propels the entire episode forward. You can also thank the terrific character animation for that: every nuance of indignation and hysteria and embarrassment and bliss is captured in motion, even if it's something as minor as Jin sneezing. The laid-back soundtrack (with just a hint of traditional music, to remind us of the series' Shinto roots) is also careful not to draw attention to itself, letting the comedy stand on its own.

The only complaint about this opening episode is how 80% of it takes place inside Jin's house—come on, animation staff, challenge yourselves—and that there's barely a hint of any other characters yet. Oh, and Rosario+Vampire Capu2 had better watch out: this one's got an idol-singer credit sequence too, and unlike Rosario, it has a good anime attached to it.