Kotoura-san

An anime based off a 4-koma about a girl that can read minds and the guy with perverted thoughts that comes to befriend her. This should be a fairly run-of-the-mill romantic comedy...

(watches first episode)

...dang. That was surprisingly intense. And awfully sweet at the end.

I know I'm not the only one who was surprised by this one, so anyone else following this unexpected gem, feel free to chat it up about it here.

...

Wow. That had some impact.

Thanks stardf, I probably wouldn't have watched it otherwise.

Those people.◊

This is an over-expressed idea, but I bet Gen Urobuchi wishes he could crush his characters this completely. And the best part is, that was the set up to a single gag!

Manabe is a wonderful foil to a mind reader. Not only is his mind full of absurd rubbish, but when he's talking, most of the time he's thinking exactly what he's saying! Brilliant.

Well, here's something I'll be watching.

I'm still skeptical about what it's going to turn out like in the long run. The set-up is still very focused on the moe appeal of a crushed girl and she doesn't act very natural for such a person and I was actually kinda bothered by how ridiculously big her apartment is for a solitary little girl whom no one but her grandfather likes, buuuut judging by the bite marks on my arm after the first half and the fact that I lost my headphones a few times during the second, it's been doing its job so far.

Also it feels like someone made an anime out of Satori and me, haha.

I will be very disappointed if she doesn't start taking care of a bunch of cats at some point.

edited 11th Jan '13 3:08:56 AM by Fawriel

I got a real Madoka Magi Magica feeling from it, especially if you've seen the later episodes of Madoka :P

I'm really liking the look of this!

This is why I watch at least one or two episodes of just about every series each season; I'd miss out on shows like this and Kimi ni Todoke and Ano Hana otherwise.

FWIW on her apartment being large, the house you see her living in as a child is pretty much a mansion by Japanese standards, so I'm guessing she comes from a fairly wealthy family. If it's due at all to her grandfather's business or what-have-you, it could make sense.

I agree with Fawriel.

Ep. 1 is very intense. Wonder if it will continue add seriousness in later episode or just become ordinary romantic comedy.

Probably will decide to follow or dropped after ep. 3

Aaaaaaaaaaaaa I really hope it will stay good or get even better! I would be crushed if it just turned into stupid moecrap after the first episode. There's some pretty dubious parts already in the second half, but it all depends on how it plays things in the long run... There's the fact I just noticed that the title uses the "-san" honoriffic. That's pretty interesting. Moecrap using the title of the lead character usually uses "-chan", or worse! So maybe that's a subtle pointer like "PREPARE TO HAVE BASIC HUMAN RESPECT FOR THIS CHARACTER, BITCH". There's also the fact that I-forgot-his-name Manabe is apparently ashamed of how little self-control he has, so maybe that'll actually turn into something deeper and he won't just be this audience surrogate character who suggests that you can be an annoying, pushy pervert all you want because there'll be some girl who's broken enough to accept you as long as you accept her.

I'll be so hurt if this turns into something stupid. The first episode left me with a warm feeling inside ever since.

I wouldn't put too much hope into that, guys. I mean, this is still a 4koma. Not that I'm saying Kotoura's issues won't be brought up again, but I expect such moments to be few in number or short in duration.

That said, I'm definitely going to keep watching. It was the mind-reader rom com that got me interested in the first place, the (slightly excessive) melodrama was just the icing on the cake.

That remains to be seen. The drama is completely original to the anime, right? If they depart that much from the source material for the first episode, it's possible that they might keep going there... It seems like the mother will come up again, for instance.

i just want to be able to hope *sobbu*

Oh, it was anime-original? Props to the studio then.

I also think the mom will pop up again, and that's going to get bloody. Metaphorically of course. But like I said I fully expect drama like that to be little in quantity. Kotoura deserves at least that much after spending a big chunk of her life wallowing in misery.

Well, at least that's what I got from hurrying through a blog post on a futile search to find scanlations of the 4koma.

And yeah, I definitely want Haruka to be happy. It would just simply be ridiculous if, after all these years, all it took was for this guy to pop up to make her perform a complete 180 in terms of demeanor. I'll be able to accept it to a certain extent since she seemed to always be very bouncy and happy at heart when she was a child, but... only to an extent.

And I want to know more about how she spent all those years alone! What hobbies has she been following to fill the time! Are her cute clothes a display of her sweet nature or did she just never come into contact with any subcultures that would encourage her to dress differently or is it just a relic from a 4koma that knew no drama! I am completely and utterly putting too much thought into this anime that will most likely turn out to be stupid while I should be studying for the upcoming exaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaams!

I'm not entirely sure where the humour is going to go either.

I think by the second episode we should be able to take a more reasonable guess at what the bulk of the series will be madre up of.

Well, I suppose I'm expecting a couple more characters to be introduced too.

x6

Your point about the honorifics brought something to my attention, although it's probably not all that significant. In the flashback, Kotoura is called by her first name, either alone or with a -chan added on. Afterwards, it's Kotoura-san. It's not really all that unusual in Japan to refer to children like that and switch to a more formal speech once they hit their secondary education, but the title draws a bit of attention to it.

Then again, since apparently the 4koma is more light-hearted than the anime, it's probably coincidence. Although I suspect at some point she and Manabe will get on a first name basis, which will be nice.

Also of note: Though when he first speaks to her he uses the -san honorific, shortly after he doesn't use it in his thoughts. Though that might be natural in Japanese culture, I don't know.

On a subject unrelated to analyzing completely arbitrary things with all the logic of a conspiracy theorist, I'm rather impressed by the way the mind reading is expressed. Specifically, how some thoughts are made obvious through expressions and nuance, rather than outright stated—Manabe seems to be lying when he says his home is in the direction as Kotoura's, but it's never made absolute. I gotta admit, it's nice when a writer acts like the audience has half a brain.

edited 12th Jan '13 8:52:13 PM by Rem

That actually struck me as very ambiguous... I thought he was just flustered and her response wasn't sarcasm but begrudging acceptance. Hmm.

But, well, of course he doesn't call her "Kotoura-san" in his fantasies. He likes to think of themselves as about as close as it gets, right?

I just found Haruka looking like an orange-haired Ai Haibara.

EDIT: This series has more preorders than Sasamisan At Ganbaranai...

edited 14th Jan '13 8:14:01 AM by SamCurt

That probably won't last long. It would take a miracle for the rest of Kotoura-san (or even part of it!) to rise to the level of the first episode, whereas I'm not even sure if Shaft themselves know where they're going with their project.

edited 14th Jan '13 11:59:46 AM by Savoie

Japanese Wikipedia seems to indicate the manga to be a very dramatic series for a yonkoma.

EDIT: Article started at Manga.Kotoura-san.

edited 14th Jan '13 3:07:38 PM by SamCurt

Overly Narrow Superlative, I think.

Would it be alright to raise a point about Kotoura being insensitive in that she should have known better than to blurt out people's thoughts like that?

I think that by the time she was old enough to understand things like that, she was more or less past the point of being able to care. For an instinctive mind reader, it would be a case of I Thought Everyone Could Do That.

In any rate, nobody really owns the content of the wiki, so edit as appropriate as you think that's correct.

Just watched the first episode. They went a little overboard with the drama during the first half, but I guess it was necessary to make the second half's sweetness stand out properly.

I think I can stand to keep watching this a little longer. Seems like a fun ride.

2nd episode is much better as far as mixing the comedic and dramatic elements goes.

In any case, other than a little Adaptation Expansion for the character back stories, it's following what I have seen of the 4koma quite closely. The internet reaction to the next episode should be amusing.

I challenge if anyone here can catalogue all Heroic BSoD and Big "NO!" examples in this series.

EDIT: So what, Hiyori is the leader of most of the school girls? What a Tsundere.

edited 17th Jan '13 7:11:45 PM by SamCurt

The second episode dispels my doubts about this as an adaptation. It follows on from the first excellently, and seems to almost equal it in drama and comedy while simultaneously starting to weave the plot.

I think they're doing a good job of continuing to work through problems too.

That said... Man, a lot of these characters are not nice.