This anime is a strange beast, just like the manga it's based on. It's primarily a slice-of-life series, set in a world where all people are hybrids of various sorts (centaurs, goatmen, sirens etc.) and follows everyday life of Hime, a centaur high school student and her classmates. It mostly focuses on the problems and challenges that Hime and people of other hybrid races face, some coming from
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This anime is a strange beast, just like the manga it's based on. It's primarily a slice-of-life series, set in a world where all people are hybrids of various sorts (centaurs, goatmen, sirens etc.) and follows everyday life of Hime, a centaur high school student and her classmates. It mostly focuses on the problems and challenges that Hime and people of other hybrid races face, some coming from their racial features (ex. sirens not being able to move on land) and some very much universal (ex. taking care of younger siblings in one-parent household). It also hints at possible romance between the main character and one of her female friends. But that's not all...
The other major component of the story is the political reality of this world, with many totalitarian themes, mostly connected to forced equality between various races and extremely harsh treatment of all forms of discrimination. While the everyday life of the characters seem pretty much normal, we are regularly shown cases of extreme propaganda, security apparatus etc. giving us the feeling that something's very wrong under the surface.
The problem is, the show's pacing is extremely slow and if it follows the manga faithfully, it probably won't be able combine its various themes into any coherent storyline. You would expect the political intrigue to influence the main character's life in some drastic way, transforming the show into a fully-fledged dystopia, but all that I've heard about the source material says it's not really the case. As it is now, Centaur's Life is pretty relaxing and have redeeming qualities as a slice-of-life story and kind of a though experiment, with its super-realistic approach to modern society with fantasy races. On the other hand, it seems to suffer from perpetual identity crisis and it's hard to get a proper feeling on what you're actually watching and whether it will ever go anywhere with some of its story elements.
Still, I find many of the reviews here overly harsh. The show definitely have its intriguing elements and I think that the emotional dynamic between the three main characters is really enjoyable. For now, I give it four stars and I will continue watching it, with a slight hope that authors will be able make the story a bit more cohesive and dynamic in the future.
EDIT: As a small update for the end of the season, I think that the series sadly fell victim to the traps I've mentioned earlier and maybe even more so than I expected. The last episode especially left a bitter taste in my mouth, mostly consisting of cute filler and fanservice, with absolutely no substance. The series creates myriad of stories, but never gives them any closure, making the whole experience sadly unsatisfying. I'm not lowering the score to three stars mostly due to respect for its original and bold ideas, but much of that potential was in my opinion wasted.
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