Kanokon

Kanokon's story revolves around Kouta Okayama, a young first-year high school student who moves from the country to the city and thus transfers to Kunpo High School. On his first day at his new school, a beautiful second-year female student named Chizuru Minamoto asks him to meet her alone in the music room. When he arrives, she reveals that she is in fact a fox deity and from that day on the two hang out together. Nozomu is a first year female student at Kouta's school, she is in fact a wolf deity and in love with Kouta, and a rival of Chizuru for Kouta's affections.

I'm going to say this now, Kanokon is a super ecchi/fan service anime but, for those two reasons, this show was pretty damn funny. I haven't laughed this hard in a pretty long time. I should also mention this show is NOT for kids what so ever. You see breasts, panties, and other stuff through out the entire show that are not intended for kids.

One of the main characters, Chizuru, is in love with Kouta. During the course of the show Chizuru does many perverted things to him. While he likes it, he always resists it because he thinks it's wrong. While Chizuru starts doing these things to Kouta, the other students at their school give Kouta the nickname "The Great Erotic King". That's just one of the many goofy/erotic things during the show. h.

. While it's super ecchi and fan service, I just thought it was very funny. The comedy of the show is what drew me in (and maybe the ecchi stuff :P). If you love ecchi/fan service stuff, you will probably love this series. While a short ride (12 episodes), it was very enjoyable. I think they may be making another season but, I'm not sure. I know there are 2 OVAs out now but, I don't think any of them are subbed yet

Story & Playability

Its a tale as old as time:

Boy meets girl, girl falls for boy, boy begins falling for girl, girl turns out to be a 400 year old spirit fox. And thus begins a tale of mythological Japanese animals living alongside, and falling in love with, humans, and discovering themselves all while trying to get through High School.

Kanokon exists as a novel series, a manga, and a anime and each have their own merits. I am most familiar with the anime and manga so I will stick to them. In acknowledgment of several reviewer's request (I rarely come here and so it has taken this long to edit), I will attempt to more accurately explain what comments refer to what series (the anime vs. the manga).

The plot of Kanokon is quite often little more than an excuse for ecchi comedy and developing the main couple's relationship. However, as the series continues and more about the character's, their pasts and their families comes to light, some deeper elements emerge. However, the main theme remains to have a fun ride as the strange couple learns how to love each other better. The manga is a better example of this as the anime often (though not always) favors over-the-top ecchi scenes to character and story development.

The characters of Kanokon are in some ways quite generic. Chizuru is the gorgeous, sexy female lead, Kouta is the small, shy male lead. They are surrounded by the typical assortment of zany characters, the strict, the sweet, the tough, the mean, the cool etc. complete with rival love interests for both characters.

In its execution though Kanokon diverges a bit from what is typical of series of this kind. Unlike most shy male leads, Kouta gets, and gladly accepts, a good deal of physical affection from Chizuru, mainly objecting only when she gets too touchy-feely in public. And unlike the typical female lead of series like this Chizuru is very difficult for Kouta to offend. Indeed she could be said to be as lustful as any "pervert" male in anime/manga, albeit she limits her affection to one man only. This exception to the rules does not extend to her dealings with other characters however, especially her younger brother who is frequently the target of her temper.

On the anime and manga it should be noted that in my view Kouta comes out as far more childish in looks and actions in the anime compared to the manga. This is in part due to his extremely feminine voice (the voice actor is female of course).

On the note of edits, let it be pointed out that my numbered ratings in this review will now always refer to the anime version as the manga has yet to end and relatively few chapters have been translated, and thus I cannot fully judge it. For most of the ratings though you can assume that my rating for the manga version currently would be a few points higher (if applicable).

In this case where I rate the anime story as a 6, I would currently rate the manga as a 7 or 8.

Rating 6 (average)

Graphics

The art style of the Kanokon manga is colorful (when in color), beautiful, fanciful and above all extremely cute. This is even more true in the anime where the majority of the characters positively boil over with cuteness.

As for art quality the anime can't compete with things like Ghost in the Shell, but it doesn't really need to. Its art matches the story's lighthearted manner. It also is favorable to me personally due to the crisp, clear art and attractive characters.

More specifically the manga art projects more maturity and sophistication to it. The anime, on the other hand, has the characters drawn as more "bouncy" and "soft" (no, no ecchi subtext was intended there). This helps project the different feelings, and perhaps audiences, the the anime and manga are made for. This and other elements, are also reasons why many fans favor the manga when it comes to quality while those who like the anime are likely to care more about laughs than art quality.

In this case where I rate the anime art as 7 I'd rate the manga as at least 8.

Rating 7 (above average)

Sound

As the voice actors are speaking Japanese its hard to judge their quality and is somewhat subjective. As said earlier Kouta's voice makes his character seem younger than he is. However, in general the voice actors (particularly Chizuru's) seem to display an amount of energy and passion appropriate for their roles. This is the most important element I think for any series that uses voice actors.

The music is light and cute and pleasing to the ear, for me at least. However, I must admit to not knowing a great deal about judging the quality of such things. Still, there is nothing about it that will truly blow your mind.

Rating 7 (above average)

Fun

Kanokon is in many ways a typical ecchi romance comedy, except it kicks the borderline material up to about as high as it can possibly go without actually being hentai. And it does so in such a sweet and hilarious manner that it hardly even seems dirty. The love between Chizuru and Kouta is as sweet a thing as you could hope to find and a welcome respite from typical manga/anime stories where the couples dance around even admitting their feelings for years of chapters on end.

Overall both the manga and anime have a strange charm about them that makes them quite enjoyable to follow. This charm to me is in how you can come to like the fictional characters and be eager to see what happens to them next. In addition it is in watching a story that is not meant to be taken overly seriously, allowing you to relax and simply laugh at the jokes or coo at the sweet moments.

Albeit the anime can be said to be over the top when it comes to suggestive material. It is so to the point that many who like the manga vehemently dislike the anime. To me it depends simply on what you're looking for. The anime is a mindless distraction with some genuine heart in it, while the manga has much more quality overall. And of course the anime currently has the advantage of having more material available to english speakers than the manga.

In this case I'd rate the manga at a 9, due largely to how it explains a lot more than the anime does and this is important for overall presentation.

I thought that this was such a cute Anime, one of my favorites . sexy too xD YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I don't know what is going on with crunchy-roll, it seems like they have a double standard where they will put up the uncut version of Steel angel Kurumi, but when they put this up it's a very badly done hacked up version of the show. They don't even try to censor it, they just hack it up like it's some piece of meat. If you can put up Steel angel Kurumi uncut then you can put this one up as well.

Best fan-service and ecchi anime I've seen yet.

There are two main girls, they're very different but both magical (fox and wolf), they play well together, and the boy, Kouta, isn't opposed so much as he's just plain young...REALLY young. This is a cavalcade of erotica with (for me) a very high hit ratio. The situations mostly arose from the plot, the characters rang true throughout, and, somehow, they managed to string out the "action" without making me feel cheated.

If you love ecchi, you must watch this show.

If you love action, drama, plot, explosions, martial arts battles where fighters name their moves...This isn't that show.

i seen this anime 12+ times and still get a good kick out of it, story line is funny, and interesting, Music is good, and gotta love the girls fighting over Kota. Kota got it made in this anime, and on top the story throws you a twist, when you have one idea in mind it changes.

Love story between Yo-ko (fox) Chizuru and a human Kota. They met in the rain on sunny day, which is called Kitsune-no-Yomeiri, Wedding of fox and fell in love, Until the final episode, Kota was not able to say "I love you" to Chizuru since he was so shy. On the other hand Chizuru kept on showing her love to him. I think most of high school boys are not shy like Kota but it was fun because of him. Actually, you'd better read Kanokon to know characters in this story, Nozomu, Akane, Tayura, Teachers since anime omitted most of funny stories.

But I understand how Chizuru felt when Kota said "I love you, you are the most important girl to me" in Kitsune-no-Yomeiri. Very cute story.

This anime is hot, perverted, interesting, and always keep a smile on your face. Story line is good, and fills a slight fantasy everyone has of what its like in japan. The characters are well written so is the story. Animation is swell too. I recommend this show to anyone that is 10+ lol.

Now I have been watching anime for a while now and this one is one of the basics. But the variety of the characters are vast. Yes in the end there is a serious show down but thought the series there are points of true hilarity and perverted-ness. I don't that is a word but I will use it to describe this anime. If you watch with an open mind and realize that it is an anime you can enjoy the base humor and come to love the anime for just what it is. Enjoyment.

I watched this years ago, and yes, it was my first ecchi anime. It's a nice series, I would definitely recommend this to an ecchi fan.
This anime can be:
Funny
Maddening
Cute
And
Awesome, but just remember it's actually better than you think it will be.