Moe... Good god, my love-hate relationship with the very concept. How you irritate me to no end, and yet tempt me at all times. This time, I fold my hand. You got me. I surrender.
And you know what? I don't even bloody regret it.

When a random boy by the name of Takeru Amato moves in to a miraculously cheap apartment (seriously, I wish my college dorm was that low), he discovers that in it is a portal to another dimension. And from it comes a cat girl by name of Nya-tan who turns out to be a washed-up deity who botched her promotion to from being an Eto-Musume to a personification of the Chinese zodiac, two millennia ago. Soon the rest of the Zodiac show up and things for Takeru go downhill from there... and with it, my sides.

Etotama is an Action-Comedy original production by studio Encourage Films with Shirogumi, a 3DCG studio. It follows suit with many moefications of countless concepts, from Romance of the Three Kingdoms to canned vending machine drinks to WWII Axis Battleships (yes, I am that petty). But those series more often than not take themselves rather seriously... with varying degrees of success (gently pets Kantai Collection).

As such, in an act of blasphemy of the highest calibre, Etotama makes the move of throwing all seriousness out the window from the get-go. Etotama is self-aware at almost every moment, with the only thing keeping it from becoming Deadpool's next vacation spot being that Takeru has absolutely no clue that this is a TV show. The show immediately parodies the countless cliches seen in anime romance flicks, from "a cat girl showing up and taking a liking to the protag at first sight" to "protag walks in on girl while she's undressing for a bath" to "girl straight-up offers sex to protag when he arrives home". And the parodies escalate from there, from excessively long spoutings of exposition to even more moe-stereotypes.

Which brings me to the characters. The characters themselves have such hilarious personalities that it's really hard to actually any of them. Our protagonist, Takeru, more or less acts like more stoic, if also rather soft-spoken version of Kyon from Haruhi, being absolutely unimpressed by the BS happening around him. Piyo-tan, the rooster, is a bird-brained lady who literally loses her memory whenever she takes three physical steps on the ground and so many gags involve her being swindled into doing so. Dora-tan, the dragon, switches from seemingly being the only reasonable Eto-Musume to being no more sane at the drop of a hat. And Moo-tan? Well, you're better off seeing for yourself.

Hell, comedy as a whole is something that Etotama proves to be so on-the-spot with because it remembers the golden rule of comedy: Build it up and finish it strong. The weakness most comedy anime that just thrive on being absolutely nuts at all times have is that it gets predictable. Yes, lack of predictability can be predictable, it's a paradoxical truth. Etotama's jokes manage to be gut busters through following this basic rule, keeping the pacing between jokes at the right length in order to create the moment for viewers to be off-guard.

Then we get to my absolute favorite part of this anime: the fight scenes, which are instead rendered in 3DCG. These days, it's hard to find a well-animated action-based series that isn't KyoAni, Studio Gainax, Ufotable, or Studio Shaft. It's even harder to find an anime with good CGI animation. No, seriously. Lemme be blunt here; Japan's CGI animation arguably has quite the notoriety. More often than not, CGI comes out looking incredibly conspicuous in anime, causing it stand out in jarring ways (e.g. a CGI mech in a painted background). On top of that is the inconsistent fluidity of the animation. Sometimes it's running at a fluid rate, but that's only for stuff like doodads and still-objects. Other times, it feels like it's running at a lower rate than even live-action TV's 24 frames per second; at which point the animation just ends up feeling incredibly unnatural, maybe even falling into the uncanny valley (Knights of Sidonia, anyone?). This may be because most studios don't really have dedicated CGI animation teams, so have to consult with others or make it themselves with what they have.
Etotama manages to avoid all of that, thanks to the collaborative effort with Shirogumi Studios. The fight scenes become absolute gold, both in their scale and style. During these scenes, the Eto-Musume take on chibi-fied forms, but none of this detracts from their abilities as they promptly duke it out with each other. The first fight in the episode alone proves to be both spectacular and beautiful, taking place in an breath-taking ice world that isn't done away with by the chibi-fied designs of the girls. There is seriously nothing else I can add that can do these scenes justice.
And on top of that is a pet peeve of mine that Shirogumi solves as well: expressions. Most of the time in 3DCG animation in video games and such, we barely get the full-scope of peoples' expressions. When the face is also rendered with a rig, the limitations of the model still end up making the face look a little stiff even when the emotions being made clear. And when the face is set up with a texture rather than a model, it ends up being limited by the number of expressions that have been prepared and facial motions more or less end up being face-swaps. Etotama manages to avoid that as well. As the girls fight, even their expressions feel real as we see the actual change from gritted teeth to open-mouthed panic to dissonant "serenity" (remember, still a comedy series). It becomes even more thrilling and entertaining to watch as we see both the balls-to-the-wall action and the faces the characters make during the fights.
Even then, these fights also manage to be funny. As a comedy series, Etotama proves that not even its own fight scenes are immune to parody, seeing as other characters witness these through a cute little telly that plays things out like a shounen competitive combat anime.

All that said, that doesn't mean that Etotama doesn't suffer from any problems. As said, Etotama does not take itself seriously at the slightest, parodying cliches at full force and leaving the fourth wall in need of an emergency room. This extends to personalities, which while they're hilariously exaggerated, can prove to be rather predictable and even flat.

My Verdict: Absurdly enough, this is already going into my favorites. There is so much that Etotama manages to do so well, how can I hate it? If you're not one for moe, stay for the utter lack of a fourth wall. If you're not one for comedy, stay for the stunning 3DCG action. There is so much to this series that I love and so little to dislike. It's strange, it's funny, it's cute, and it's awesome. A series that's definitely worth watching when you're simply in the mood for not giving a single crap. And it's gonna leave you breathless; either because your sides are in freaking orbit, because the fight scenes have punched all the air outta your lungs, or for... uh... other reasons.

Recipe for hilarity.
Take once Chinese zodiac, and turn them into moe girls.
Add one cat based character, and one extraordinary human to the mix.
Vigorously stir the mix while adding jokes, puns, one-liners, and relevant information to taste.
Transfer to a chibi arena bowl, and add heat.
Serve warm with a side of milk or tea to preference.

This is a fairly quick paced show aimed primarily at comedy, and it starts off well with that delivery. Takeru plays the straight man role across from 13 energetic god-spirits while chaos and comedy run rampant. There isn't a lot of effort put into character development outside of the primary characters with such a large cast, but it is sure to be an amusing ride. The general plot is pretty thin, but it pleasantly surprised me with it's comedy skit format that makes up for that shortcoming. Keeping that in mind, I am feeling that this will be an easy one to keep on my queue for easy laughs.

Takeru is apparently a rare human that has no problems having god spirits suddenly drop into his life, and moving into a new house with a passage to the land of gods in his living room. At first it's only the cat-god who was tricked into missing the zodiac meeting ages back, but he will soon be hosting the whole gang. Being able to produce high quality energy for them is sure to lure the whole gang to his door whether he wants them there or not. Every few years the zodiac has a competition that gives the lesser entities a chance at displacing an established god, and that is the goal of Nya-tan even though she has lost a good deal of her memories. Chasing down 12 victories against the primary gods is a tall order, but this tricky kitty is chasing it down like a pen-light.

Anime has a lot of things: Cute characters, some ecchi, harem-ish, Battle/Combat, lots of characters with personality

Unfortunately, it doesn't really do any of these things great. You got used to seeing some character more than others, but there is very little character development. It pretty much unloads it all at the end.

Overall, I'm not dissappointed with having finished it, but I could have dropped it early on and I wouldn't have missed it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, unless you just want something to listen/watch while doing something else.

Etotama was a weird ride, filled with moe, and a popular type of comedy that I usually don't like but, after watching it all the way through, that message of love began to truly appeal to me. I don't know how to say it quite, but I really like how the message of friendship is uniquely conveyed in this story. Friendship and reliance created the villain of the story, mercy caused the hero to get amnesia and become weak, but still, after all that, love saved the hero, the villain, and the whole cast to boot. Takeru symbolized the healing power that people have: that sincerity would give you strength. The actually quite deep metaphors sprinkled throughout, as well as the gags that were used seemingly to cover them up, made the story... charming. I don't know if I would personally suggest it to others, but I think it still deserves to be known.