Gingitsune

One of the shows am thoroughly enjoying this season is “Gingitsune”, the anime adaptation of the original “ぎんぎつね” manga by Ochiai Sayori, a slice-of-life story with supernatural elements.

The story follows Makoto, a high school girl born from a lineage of shrine priests, who from a young age is able to see the shrine’s herald spirit fox Gintarou. Although long abandoned by his herald companion and uninterested in human affairs, Gintarou forms a close bond with Makoto as she grows up, leading to a unique relationship between the two.

Although the overall atmosphere of the series is like an enchanting slice-of-life series, the various subplots about Makoto growing up, making new friends in school, coming to terms with her own and everyone’s flaws and personal issues, the show definitely gets more serious at times.

In that aspect, “Gingitsune” has some dramatic moments and feels more like a coming of age tale not unlike this season’s “Nagi no Asukara”. Perhaps the best comparison is “Kamichu!”, which had that mix of supernatural elements, slice-of-life moments and was also a coming of age story.

Although the supernatural element is omnipresent with the various heralds Makoto interacts with, the series never delves too much into the fantasy genre by overly elaborating about the heralds. What is revealed about heralds like Gintarou helps drive the story along and explains much in terms of their personality and behaviour.

Animation by studio Diomedea is decent to good, although it does not particularly dazzle. The overall animation is solid and as is often typical for slice-of-life series, features lush and enchanting backgrounds.
Sometimes the animation style used, especially in terms of character design is reminiscent of the style more often used in anime series many years ago, though not as extreme as in say “Nazo no Kanojo X”.

Makoto is voiced by Kanemoto Hisako who also voiced Kanata in “So-Ra-No-Wo-To”, Ika Musume in “Shinryaku! Ika Musume”, Haruka in “Kotoura-san”, Ami in “Suisei no Gargantia” and also voices Natsuki in this season’s “Strike the Blood”.

While Kanemoto Hisako is a perfect fit for Makoto and delivers a terrific performance, personally do feel it’s a shame that Itou Kanae who voiced Makoto in the drama CD didn’t reprise the role for the anime. Reason is simply that am quite fond of Itou Kanae’s voice work, she voiced Ruiko in “To aru Kagaku no Railgun”, Ohana in “Hanasaku Iroha” and Sena in “Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai”.

Feisty Yumi is voiced by Akasaki Chinatsu, she voiced Nibutani in “Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!”, Maki in “Love Lab”, Yasuna in “Kill me Baby” and Chiwa in “Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru”.

Serious Hiwako is voiced by Koshimizu Aki, she’s tackled roles like Charlotte in “Strike Witches”, Maou in “Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, Karen in “Code Geass”, Holo in “Spice & Wolf”, Nodoka in “Saki” and voices Ryuuko in this season’s “Kill la Kill”.

Will gladly keep on watching this series, and while there might be some more dramatic moments coming, the overall atmosphere is heartwarming and positive, making it an excellent slice-of-life show that I can recommend to all.