My Anime Life: Kusunoki's Garden of Gods

 Slice of life comedy is something I sometimes don't have much connection to, mostly because many of them haven't been that compelling, especially in the anime space. I adore (most of) Azumanga Daioh, but others like Nichijou and Lucky Star leave me cold. But I recently watched a new series that is essentially a fantasy slice of life.

Kusonoki's Garden of Gods is a 2026 anime produced by Juvenage, and based on the light novel series by Enju. It follows Minato Kusunoki, a young man with overwhelming levels of spiritual energy and a latent talent for dispelling kegare, as he is put in charge of a former family residence. Since he also accidentally purifies a shrine belonging to the local kami Yamagami, the wolf kami comes to live with him. As to a procession of kami and sacred beasts and yokai. Gentle hilarity ensues.

From what I've gathered, the anime is based on the first four volumes of the original light novel series, and cuts or condenses a lot of stuff. I think? It is apparently a good adaptation of the source overall, but oh boy is this anime lean compared to the light novels. But as someone who generally doesn't do light novels (though that may change), the anime was a fairly nice watch.

What so I need to say? It's a slice of life fantasy, something I haven't encountered that often, and it's generally a great comfort watch. The anime does fall into the trap of having so many secondary characters that it becomes cluttered, but I think this is more due to how few episodes there are per volume adapted. Having read samples of the ongoing English translation, there's a tone of breathing room and nuance, plus a number of funny bits that don't make it in, like a full-sized and invisible Yamagami riding in a taxi and badly crowding Minato.. Also I have no idea as yet whether the more actiony parts of the anime come from the light novel, but I'm gently leaning towards...perhaps, but the anime probably overblew them.

The make-or-break point for these kinds of stories is the core cast, here limited to two: Minato and Yamagami. Their chemistry is great, as Minato is basically dumped into being caretaker for a kami who is one of the pickiest eaters in the region and has a rivalry with the neighbouring kitsune kami. They seem to get on with each other at an instinctively level, almost like they're soul mates. Though something that isn't communicated that well in the anime is how lazy Yamagami is, something summed up perfectly in the light novel line: "That slothful wolf, who hardly ever moved from its favourite cushion, truly was a troublesome kami."

So, just like my last anime life, this is something that was a pleasant surprise. An example of a genre I typically don't vibe with, but that managed to click with its character chemistry and lore inspired by Japanese Shinto traditions. It's also got very entertaining performances by the actors, better-than-expected animation, and enjoyable music. Worth a watch? I'd say so. Read the book? Certainly from what I've read, just don't expect them to be one to one. Something I'm learning these days is that adaptations seem to share a similar property between east and west: with a few exceptions, a lot of creative liberties are taken.

My Anime Life: Isekai Office Worker

If there are two terms it's probably expected most anime fans should know, it's "Boy's Love" and "Isekai". Apologies, but this explanation is needed to ground the show I'm talking about today.

Boy's Love, often called yaoi in the West though that's actually a pejorative term in Japan, is a genre of fiction that focuses on romantic relationships between men. This genre is primarily though not exclusively written by women, and generally isn't aimed explicitly at an LGBT audience. They're often set in modern day, and lean towards having some bleak themes, problematic content when it comes to consent, and no concrete resolution. Meanwhile Isekai, which translates to 'different world', is a Japanese subgenre of portal fantasy with usually extremely long titles where someone from one world is transported into another by some form of explosion or high-velocity impact, usually ours into a fantasy realm with weirdly gamey rules, but sometimes it's the other way round. A number of Isekai are serious in tone, but most are at least very light-hearted if not outright comedies or satire. Suffice to say, I'm wary of both genres. One thing in common with anime adaptations of both Boy's Love and Isekai is...the budget often isn't there, and the writing can get a bit pedestrian as most are based on prose light novels where a lot of characterisation is in the prose text.

Isekai Office Worker: The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (yes that's its real title) is a 2026 anime created by Studio Deen, based on a light novel series written by Yatsuki Wakatsu that falls firmly within both genres. And surprisingly, despite suffering from many issues that plague both isekai and boy's love, I enjoyed it.

The story has chronically overworked workaholic office worker (talk about cyclical phrasing) Seiichirou Kondou dragged along with teenager Yua Shiraishi into another world; Yua was summoned as a "holy maiden" to save the kingdom from corrupting miasma, while Seiichirou is there by mistake and quickly becomes ill from the world's omnipresent magic. Enter knight commander Aresh Indolark, who finding Seiichirou near death is forced to take...intimate steps to prevent him from dying. Cue a somewhat cockeyed love story with emotional confusion to varying degrees on both sides.

This story walks a fine tonal line between comedic exploration of a Japanese office worker's habits and financial knowhow transplanted into a low-tech fantasy kingdom, and some actually serious story beats surrounding how Yua and Seiichirou were dragged from their world against their will and how factionalism is holding the country back from meaningful change. I'd say it falls more on the side of being a romantic comedy, but it strikes a balance fairly well. Albeit it still has things that irritate me like the fantasy world's clothing being a blatant slapping together of late 18th Century Europe and modern day Japan, which... How does that work exactly?

As with any romance, the two leads are important, and I was surprisingly invested in Seiichiro and Aresh as characters. They're like oil and water, but they somehow get along. Although this is also where some problematic stuff rears its head as Aresh turns from being attentive to outright possessive at several points, making Seiichirou and by extension me uncomfortable. Aresh has trouble sorting out his feelings since he innately mistrusts this 'otherworlder' who wasn't supposed to be there. A positive I found is that the conflict within Seiichirou about the romance doesn't seem focused internalised homophobia, but is more to do with this being a foreign world and maybe never having experienced this kind of love before; also how they initiated their relationship was Aresh needing to "make love" to Seiichirou to normalise him to some type of magic to stop him dying. Yes, that's the story's excuse for the initiating bedroom fun times, although Aresh was careful to ask Seiichirou's permission before doing it, so that's a plus.

Under most circumstances I'd count this anime as a guilty pleasure and not bother writing in this series about it. What tipped it over the edge was that the dub is very good. The English script turns a lot of the more pedestrian parts of the story into something quite enjoyable, mostly because the Japanese script's humour gets repetitive. The variations in Seiichirou and Aresh's banter are a lot more pronounced in English, and this is one of the few times I'd say the Japanese track is weaker than the English one.

This isn't a series where I score or recommend different anime explicitly, but I do show my opinions. And in my opinion, I found Isekai Office Worker enjoyable, but not exactly ground-breaking. It has the same flaws as many other boy's love and isekai titles, but the way it blends them together combined with its tonal balance and a great dub mean that, for the first time in a long time, I actually enjoyed a boy's love story.

Now on Author Talks, Writing Queer

 It's that time again! This time, using my previous posts that I published during Pride Month, I've recorded a longish episode dealing with my origins, growth and early (current) career as a bisexual writer or queer-infused fiction. I admit, this episode was thrown together in a bit of a hurry due to my originally-planned episode falling spectacularly flat and needing major surgery. Plus life and heatwaves interfering with things. So here you are. I hope you enjoy.

YouTube link

Spotify Link

And if you want to read my original posts during or after this (there are some necessary differences), here they are linked for you!

Writing Queer 1: unpromising beginnings

Writing Queer 2: My early fictional attempts.

Writing Queer 3: Editor’s Feedback and Real Life

 Writing Queer 4: Some Tips and Tricks