#ochi

The story is about how Japan has a special race called beastfolk in their society, but they live in an isolated area. However, they can live amongst humans, but if they do, they do get discriminated against. Regardless, the heroine Mari finds herself someone a little scared of beastfolk due to how uncommon they are, but after meeting Tsunagu Hidaka, the new beastfolk transfer student who is attending her school due to a special program, she slowly sees the good in him and eventually it blossoms into romance.

From the first episode alone, I do wonder if this is some sort of metaphor for how Japanese people see people of different races and ethnicities. They are a monogamous country, so they’re not used to globalization. Heck, some of them can be quite vicious to foreigners and even discriminate. I do wonder if this story is trying to show off those issues by uses the beastfolk as a mouthpiece.

To be honest, I do think the main characters are good. Mari does seem like your average girl, but I think that’s the best part about her? Like, she doesn’t have to be a special ‘not like every other girl’ or a girl boss, but she was still an ordinary person who was first a little scared of Tsunagu and the beastfolk, but when she sees how sweet he is, she instantly opens her heart to him. I also like that she has a bit of an athletic side to her as she ran to school and can climb up the gate with ease—all of that athleticism comes from her walking her dog Yukimi every day in the morning—that’s a good detail.

Tsunagu is a very good boy. He knows that he’ll face prejudice and discrimination against some of his classmate, so he tries to be the better person and not let it get to him. I do like how he accepts ignorant comments with class like how that one kid was asking if he could talk to dogs and he responded with how he never saw an actual dog, so he’d give it a try; he can’t talk to them as he tried “talking” with Yukimi. He has a very cute side to him as he seems stoic and aloof but if he’s happy, he wags his tail. So cute! I do like that he has a bit of a childish, grouchier side when he’s with his own people in his village, showing off another form of himself when he’s with familiar faces. The fact that the beastfolk village doesn’t have doctors is a sad thought, but it’s nice that Tsunagu wants to change that as he’d become a doctor for his people. It’s really sweet that he works hard to the point that he’d try to go to school in a society that looks down on him.

I do like that the school has the good and the bad people. Other than Mari, Yukihiro is the most accepting of Tsunagu as he even asks him to play basketball. He’s a good guy…let’s just hope it’s not a facade. Then, there are people like Ochi and his friends who are jerks to Tsunagu. There are neutral people like Mari’s friends and the homeroom teacher. Outside of school, there are people fascinated by Tsunagu and those mean to him. It’s very interesting to see how people react and how Tsunagu just accepts everything as “that’s how people are.”

The voice cast is crazy, though. It’s filled with a lot of big names. We have Manaka Iwami as Mari and Takuya Eguchi voicing Tsunagu. I’m glad Iwami returned to shoujo anime as she was great as Tohru Honda in the Fruits Basket remake, but her roles in shounen series have been great too like Akane Kurokawa from Oshi no Ko and even Homare from Tougen Anki. Tsunagu is voiced by Takuya Eguchi and this isn’t the first time he’s been in a shoujo. He voiced Takeo from Ore Monogatari where he voiced the extremely tall MC who isn’t popular with girls. The seemingly second lead Yukihiro is voiced by Kotaro Nishiyama who voiced Atsushi from Boueibu and Jin from Tougen Anki. The side cast is stacked with Mai Nakahara, who voiced Juvia from Fairy Tail, as Mari’s mother. Hiro Shimono voices Takamori, the homeroom teacher—I think it’s been a while since I heard him voice an adult… Ochi is voiced by Kaito Ishikawa. Like, what kind of budget does Studio Millepensee have to be casting such star-studded people?

I do feel like the ending of the episode is a good sort of cliffhanger ending that would make viewers want to find out what happens next. Once again, if this is not your cup of tea, shut up and just turn around. Anyways, if you saw this episode, what are your thoughts on it?