Kobato is one of those CLAMP animes where it starts off slow until towards the middle/end where it gets all complicated and they end simple. Kobato is one of them, a naive girl sent on a mission to fill a bottle with a stuffed dog named Ioryogi. To get konpieto, you have to heal people’s hearts. Since Kobato is still an ongoing manga series in a shouen magazine (yes, Kobato is a Shouen anime, not Shoujo), there are going to be filler episodes. Although they managed to pull it off, only a few episodes were mixed bags, especially Episode 21. Yes, that episode…
Down to the story, which like mentioned earlier, Kobato needs to fill this bottle to the top with konpieto to go to some place she wants to go. To do that, you need to fill the bottle, but sometimes she fails to do so because she does other things besides doing that. On top of it, there are loan sharks who want to close down the nursery, soKobato attempts to help the nursery while finishing her mission. At least the first half was about that. Second half seems to use original material including the decision of closing down the nursery, which irked me a bit since Sayaka actually liked that loan sharker all along… and yeah… The last two episodes screams Clannad and then a few years passed and stuff… Overall, the ending redeemed itself to be at least a good story, but with a good number of flaws.
Some have pointed out that the character designs are different than the manga. Kobato is stupid than naive and Fujimoto is a jerkass more than ever. I can’t recall how many times Kobato said “You are so mean” and “meanie” because of it and it’s moe as well, which is why it’s Shouen. Anyways, throughout the story, Kobato seems to mature alot and towards the end. Fujimoto tries to push her away until that very last moment in Episode 23 and it’s obvious who is Kobato’s love interest is… since it’s romance after all. Besides the main characters and the children at the daycare, as usual, CLAMP loves to make cameos in their works. These include characters from Chobits, Wish, and Tsubasa Chronicles. Yep, that hows it goes.
Madhouse seems to have done a really good job with the animation. No wonder… They animated several CLAMP productions and some notable recent productions such as Summer Wars. Music for the most part is good, although the new ED was only used for the last few episodes… ouch…
Overall, Kobato is a good watch, but has flaws as mentioned. Some people may complain about the slowness and then the complicated plot towards the end, but nevertheless, shouldn’t really write it off so quickly. What the content has shown in the anime pretty much shown that it’s somewhat rushed since it only had 24 episodes, but if it was a bit longer and there was more manga content to work with, I think it would have done a little better. Anyways, if you still want more after this, read the manga. I’m pretty sure that the manga ending is going to be different from the Anime since of length constraints and allow for a bit more in depth storytelling.
Final Grade
8.7/10, B+
Yeah, this was surprisingly decent stuff. If they chosen the route they were going sooner and thus paced it better, it would have been a bit better. But it was still more moving than it had reason to be, and redeemed itself past episode 11.
Frankly, it was sad to see a mediocre anime with no expectations, like Kobato, beat out a mediocre anime that could only go up, like Railgun or Sora no Woto. But it did, though I’m sure few people gave it that chance compared to Bakatest or Railgun.
@temperus: I don’t usually drop animes half way though the season because I didn’t like something, but although I haven’t state it, I’m glad I stick to it. I’m pretty lenient and enjoy most of the stuff I see, except Kampfer of course (lol). I did enjoy most of it despite it has a few flaws here and there. Like with adaptations, they are obviously not going to be the same as the original and I saw that Kobato did have original content, but it was good on the most part.
I have to agree – Kobato turned out better than I expected (unlike, say, Railgun). I’m willing to forgive a show’s mediocre bits if it has at least as many good bits as well, and the second half of Kobato managed to pull out of it’s nosedive.
You ended up with a relatively heartwarming show that didn’t make everything blissful, despite having a slightly weird CLAMP-style ending… but then It’s d’aww-to-bleahh ratio was higher than average for a CLAMP production. In fact, against all odds one of my highlights of the season was episode 12’s recounting of how Ioryogi got his “name”.
@temperus: I don’t usually drop animes half way though the season because I didn’t like something, but although I haven’t state it, I’m glad I stick to it. I’m pretty lenient and enjoy most of the stuff I see, except Kampfer of course (lol). I did enjoy most of it despite it has a few flaws here and there. Like with adaptations, they are obviously not going to be the same as the original and I saw that Kobato did have original content, but it was good on the most part.