Anime Review: "Urara Meirochou"
It’s good.
Not a whole lot more to be said…
But I’ll say it anyway.
This series is a very strange mix of genres: despite being
undeniably a cute girls doing cute things (CGDCT) show, it also shares lots of
trope elements with shonen series. Power of friendship, hard work, practice,
etc. It’s a supernatural, fantasy, slice-of-life, comedy, and apparently it’s
in the seinen category, despite being about a bunch of fifteen year old girls.
It also features a good deal of very weird fan service, focusing on stomachs…
it’s oddly simple to explain, and I’ll do that in a bit.
Nothing worth commenting about any of the technical elements,
they’re all just what you’d expect from a show like this, so I’ll just skip
that and get right into the setting, plot, characters, story and what not.
It’s an alternate earth, and the series is set in a location
called “Labyrinth Town” where witches, mystics, and fortune tellers are common
place. Visually, the city is reminiscent of a fantastic take on the
transitional period between Meiji and Taisho. Without much (or any) technology
to speak of though, the series really does bring the fantastic charm, almost reminiscent
of isekai.
The main character, Chiya, is like a moe version of Tarzan,
but can speak human language for some reason. She has a thing for belly rubs,
which she uses to communicate with the forest animals, which is where the fan
service comes in – she uses the same technique on all the other ladies she runs
into, which brings quite a bit of confused-echi to the series (the kind of echi
where you’re questioning wether this is totally harmless, or actually really
weirdly fetishistic, and since you’ve gotta question that, it probably means
someone out there finds this arousing…). She goes on a quest to find her
mother, which brings her to Labyrinth town, where she meets three other girls –
they all then set out on a path of training, overcoming their own weaknesses in
order to become “Urara”, this world’s version of fortune tellers.
From there, the series becomes an episodic show where each
episode the girls face various trials, working together to grow.
This show shines in its characters, which are all very cute,
kawaii, moe, and what not. They’re fun, unique and well voice acted (in
Japanese at least, no idea if there’s a dub or not). Each girl has her own
issues, problems, and fears that they have to overcome on the path to
greatness. Their chemistry is good, and the balance between them is swell.
The main problem I have with the show is that it’s honestly
just very forgettable. I have trouble remembering what any of the individual
episodes were about, and just vaguely recall the setting and plot details (I
had to consult the show summary to figure out what the town was called because
it completely left my brain). It all really seems to be kind of unimportant,
unfortunately, since as far as activities go, fortune telling is definitely
more of an exotic one, and the setting itself is very pretty and seems to be
full of potential for world building. There were certainly some very memorable
moments, and impactful scenes, but on an episode-to-episode basis, I can’t
really remember when things happened.
And that’s not really a good thing.
However, I’d recommend this anime if you’re looking for
something cute to watch that doesn’t require you to think very much. Just sit
back, relax, and enjoy. And try not to dwell too much about the belly rubs.
