Since I have dropped Yosuga no Sora because it was too provocative for my tastes, I was able to pick up another show to fill the emptiness. Aorii from Major Arcana suggested that I should watch Otome Youkai Zakuro, which is a fantasy and alternative history kind of show. To be frank, I have read her editorial on it and I found the show rather interesting, so I decided to try it out myself…
After I watched the first episode, I cannot help but think about Imperialism. Imperialism started in the late 19th century, which is when the story takes place. Most of these imperialists were from the United States and Europe. They occupied many of the foreign countries including Japan and China. Imperialists tend to force their culture and ideals onto the foreign people. As a result, the people are hostile towards the imperialists because they are stomping on their culture. Furthermore, the Imperialists would steal their artifacts and bring them back to their own country. No wonder Imperialism is so undesirable and this show is proof of it. Heck, even the spirits hates imperialism.
Zakuro, a twin tailed half fox and half human girl seems to be dissatisfied by all the westernization caused by the imperialists. Not only that, the army decides to meddle on their Spirit affairs, which piss her off even more. She feels that the army is useless and will only get in the way of her and the other girls’ goal. Nevertheless, they let the three guys to help them. One of them includes Kei Agemaki, which seems to look flawless, but he a big wuss when he encounters the spirits.
At first, the show starts off like a typical shoujo. Heck, the animation looks like it came from a shoujo. In the next two episodes, it doesn’t feel that way since it hardly touches on the romance. For instance, the second episode has the crew destroy a train station to calm the spirit. In the third episode, it focused on how Zakuro was born and the defeating a woman and children eating spirit. As a result, the show feels a bit more like a Seinen rather than a shoujo because of some of the dark natures of the story. Of course, I don’t blame anyone that thought this was a shoujo since the creator have also created some Yaoi manga. This could explain why the art style looks so shoujoish.
Unlike the typical JC Staff tsunderes I have seen, Zakuro doesn’t seem to fall in that trap. The reasons she has a tsundere personality because of the prejudices she experiences. Since she has a half-fox spirit inside of her, normal humans were prejudiced towards her. After a while, Zakuru develops a negative attitude towards humans even if some were not prejudiced against her. In the end, I think she will change her attitudes towards humans when she cooperates with her wussy partner and meet people that are willing to accept her differences.
From the three episodes I have taste tested, Otome Youkai Zakuro is definitely a keeper. I feel this way since the show had good animation, enjoyable music and interesting story. Not only that, the scenes where Zakuro confronts the upset spirits was badass. As long JC Staff does not screw it up like their recent adaptations, I think this show is going to be good and enjoyable.
It’s funny you say that Imperialism started in the depicted period and was principally directed by the West towards Japan and China, when both Japan and China had Empires that stretched back hundreds or even thousands of years.
As far as Zakuro goes, it does indeed seem to be a keeper. The show looks great, and has a surprisingly interesting story.
I never thought of that since I focused mainly on the western influences… The empires of Japan and China didn’t come into my mind when I was writing this taste test impressions post…
I agree with you… its a great show and pretty interesting as I stated in my post.
Isn’t it a bit much to be directing taking out the whip of Imperialism on this show when the Meiji Era was primarily about Japan willingly embracing Western Culture? True, Imperialism leaves a rather dark mark on many countries, Japan should probably be marked as one of those rare exceptions that benefited greatly from its reformations. Amegaki makes this point during his emphasis of needing to accept change. I believe the primary emphasis for the series was not to take sides in this cultural divide but to emphasize the need for understanding and cooperation in order to strengthen the society as a whole, recognizing both their similarities and embracing what makes each other unique.
Imperialism and cultural divide pretty much goes hand and hand with each other… but yes, if Japan did not embrace some of the Western Culture, it wouldn’t be an economic super power as it is today. It is still important to lose their culture while in the processes to do so.
But that’s the real argument I think the series makes is how you embrace change while retaining the integrity of your culture. Neither aspect is being condemned per-say, after awhile the Youkai got used to milk after all, its more about you integrate these formerly separate societies and get around both the fear and misconceptions of one another.
Though I can’t say I’m a huge fan of J.C. Staff, this anime does look tempting to me. Probably the main reason is the cute heroine who very much reminds me (visually) of the popular shrine maiden Hakurei Reimu from the Touhou universe. Still, with all the anime I am currently watching I think I am going to leave this one aside for now and see how people react to the finished product (more so because it’s coming from J.C. Staff :p).
Looking forward to your further impressions chikorita.
JC Staff has a history of screwing stuff up like Railgun and Ookami-san as the biggest recent examples… I wonder, what ever happen to the good ol’ times… :/
Also, I won’t let you down. :p