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.

My Anime Life: Zetsuen no Tempest

I hadn't intended this to be the week's post, but I came down with a nasty flu, and this was ready, so I'm doing it now.

In this newborn article series, I've already talked about The Apothecary Diaries and Blood-C. Now I'd like to highlight a series you may never have heard of at all. Zetsuen no Tempest (officially localised as Blast of Tempest) began life as a fantasy drama manga co-written by Kyo Shirodaira and Arihide Sano, and illustrated by Ren Saizaki. The same year the manga concluded, an anime television series was created by Studio Bones and adapted by Mari Okada.

The storyline is...something. The initial premise is that following the death of his adoptive sister Aika, Mahiro Fuwa finds himself allied with Hakaze Kusaribe, a member of a mage clan dedicated to the Tree of Genesis. That clan has splintered, with a large faction seeking to awaken the counterpart Tree of Exodus, which causes giant seeds to appear and wipe out nearby populations. Mahiro seeks out lead protagonist Yoshino Takegawa, a loner who was friends with himself and Fuwa. Since Fuwa was killed with magic, Yoshino and Mahiro ally with Hakaze to find Fuwa's killer, ending up caught in the plots surrounding the Tree of Genesis and its plan for the world.

That sounds like I've given away the whole plot, but I assure you I haven't. The plot takes lots of twists and turns, yet it's paced out fairly slowly. The core drama is how the three core characters--Yoshino, Mahiro and Hakaze--deal with the unfolding path of events and the truth behind the conflict of the Genesis and Exodus Trees. The magic system used here is robust and unique, with mages of the Tree of Genesis sacrificing pieces of modern technology to grant them charges of magic, which themselves have a strict limitation on what they can and can't do.

Technically the initial goal of Hakaze to retake control of her clan is resolved within the series' first half, but the plot continues well beyond that point and builds to a compelling finale that had my head spinning in a good way. There is some repetition of scenes and information here and there, especially in flashbacks, but the writing was good enough that the repetition didn't feel like a drag. Plus, with how overwhelming some of the plot can be, some reminders here and there are a good thing.

Perhaps what brought this series to mind for the next "My Anime Life" article is Overly Sarcastic Productions' Trope Talk video on "Haunting the Narrative". The character of Aika Fuwa, who is dead by the story's opening and only seen in flashback, is the definition of this trope. Her influence on the current narrative is profound, and we do get a good look at her personality and actions, but she never features in the present storyline. Her relationship with her secret lover Yoshino and adoptive brother Mahiro is complicated to say the least, and drives much of the character chemistry related to the two. She is also the sources of some humour, which can be sorely needed as this is otherwise a pretty serious and grim plot.

Last time I didn't feel the need to comment on the anime itself beyond narrative, but here I think it is appropriate. There are some parts of the story which, to be honest, can drag. I may find a verbal debate lasting two episodes interesting, but most would be bored to tears. The animation is engaging enough that some of the boring bits are tolerable, but it's the musical score by Michiru Oshima that forms the backbone of most scenes. A grand orchestral score, it's never used in the wrong place, and despite a surprisingly small number of tracks spread across twenty-four episodes I didn't get the feeling of "oh, this one again again", but instead "oh, I know what this scene is about".

My Anime Life: Blood-C

Not quite in time for Halloween, I know. But I had a more important post to put out, so instead here's a late theme-appropriate article, the second on the "My Anime Life" series. This time we look at Blood-C, the third anime project in Production I.G's Blood franchise. A collaboration between established Blood staff, and manga collective CLAMP, Blood-C became notorious in its time due to its frequent usage of graphic violence, which was censored in Japan and caused it to be banned in mainland China.

The initial set-up is deceptively simple; Saya Kisaragi is a shrine maiden for the local Shinto temple run by her father, and is something of an airhead at school. But at night, she fights monsters in the surrounding woods dubbed Elder Bairns. People in the village start falling victims to the Elder Bairns, who speak with Saya and accuse her of being a traitor to an ancient covenant. The storyline is something a hybrid between a slow J-horror style creeping dread and unease, and the more action-oriented style of earlier Blood projects. The storyline is concluded in the movie The Last Dark, where Saya is in pursuit of forces tied to the series' events.

To say Blood-C is an acquired taste would be an understatement. Its pacing is purposefully very slow and cyclical, with part of the unease coming from how different events either don't seem to impact each other, or repeat in a kind of forced normality which grotesquely contrasts against the monstrous attacks of the Elder Bairns, many modelled on pre-existing Japanese yokai. Saya's character goes from innocent and air-headed young girl to someone who could easily dice an opponent with her sword in the blink of an eye, and some bits of the lore aren't explained fully until after the series has ended. The characters are also deliberately shallow, with a late-stage twist explaining it in a way I found interesting, but likely wouldn't sit well with a lot of people. It also does became very graphic. For once, I fully understand the censorship it received, because...yikes.

This commentary also partially extends to the movie The Last Dark, which is technically very impressive, but the tone is starkly different. It can still be quite violent, and there is a lingering dread that forms part of the horror, but it feels a lot more like a retread of the original Blood: The Last Vampire than a follow-up to Blood-C. It does properly wrap up the story, and Saya gets her wishes fulfilled, but it doesn't have quite the right kind of oomph. It's something I would watch to close out the story rather than as a good story in its own right. And to enjoy the animation and music for both, which are really good.

So...what about this? I can see why Blood-C is the black sheep of the Blood franchise. It deliberately adopts a tonally dissonant approach to its narrative, has a major plot-altering twists that I personally didn't see coming first time, and a movie that shifts tone yet again and makes the two feel like the products of entirely different teams (they're not, it was again a deliberate artistic choice). Should you try it? Well, maybe, I guess. At your own risk.

My Anime Life: The Apothecary Diaries

 Today's the start of a new article series: me, an anime lover, talking about anime I've watched and my opinions. Today, one of those that will doubtless become a modern classic. The Apothecary Diaries, produced by Toho and OLM and based on a novel series by Natsu Hyuga, is set in an alternate world based on Tang Dynasty China and follows Maomao, a woman trained in apothecary and medicine, who ends up working in the Imperial Palace and collaborates with the mysterious official Jinshi on a number of cases.

The premise of The Apothecary Diaries seems...mundane? Almost rote. But the way the setting has been constructed is incredible. There are so many complex relationships within this series that it can make your head spin. But if you know even a little about how complex and fraught Imperial Chinese clan and dynastic politics were, you will soon realise this is a surprisingly faithful interpretation. Schemes within schemes, long games, subtle one-upmanship, and the dynamite of not having a designated successor. It also doesn't shy away from the brutality of Imperial law and how the dynasties stayed in power: it doesn't show overt violence very often, but it makes clear the penalties of that era which have been carried over into this fictionalised version.

But it's the writing and characters that truly make this world so engaging. Maomao is one of the most engaging and down-to-earth protagonists I've met in a long time, regardless of gender. She's also one of the best-written female characters I've seen not just in Japanese media, but in general media. She doesn't feel like the shrinking flower many other non-warrior Asian women are in media. Indeed, most of the women in this series are a joy to watch, either for their personality and interactions up front, or their growth. Yes, some fall back on stereotypes, but they are the minority rather than the majority. Across the two seasons it's figures like Consort Gyokuyou and her attendants, the other consorts and concubines, the many maid servants, the bouncy and enigmatic Shisui, the aloof and tragic Suirei, the women of the Verdigris House, and the greater majority of the antagonists that really hold your attention. Despite being set in a patriarchal society, or perhaps because of it, it's refreshingly focused on the roles and limitations of women.

Of course I can't not talk about Jinshi, Maomao's superior and would-be love interest. I love how he is initially portrayed as frivolous and infuriatingly serene, but the more we learn about him and his role within the Imperial Court, the more his mask of the beautiful youth slips away. There is the big red flag of the fact Jinshi outranks Maomao in social status many times over, and there were a few times he edged towards overstepping a line with Maomao before fate or someone else intervened and made him look and feel foolish. I don't know how this relationship will go before it starts becoming properly toxic, but I can only hope that there is a way it can be resolved. There are a few other male characters like the attendant Gaoshun and the dog-like Lihaku, but it's telling and charming that their primary purpose in many sequences is comedic relief or as an extra official arm for Maomao.

I've recently finished watching the first two seasons of its anime adaptation, which cover the first four volumes of the light novel series. I'd seen clips of it through Crunchyrole's YouTube channel, and been intrigued. I have a soft spot for very well written court intrigue. Not your standard fluffy fare, but one where it really feels like there are stakes. And if you like political drama with real heart, and without gratuitous violence, then this is absolutely a must-watch. It's one of the few series set in this culture that doesn't focus on a hyper-masculine wuxia overtone, instead staying grounded in the actions of one woman whose low status means her life is worth less than nothing to almost everyone in the court. And it's also a refreshing fictional world that creates an alternate Imperial China without falling back on magic, instead creating an original grounded story inspired by true history.