TSUKUMOGAMI KASHIMASU

DESCRIPTION

CAST

REVIEWS

• 

  queenqueso

  70/100
  A solid Okay but that's not necessarily a bad thing. (Spoilers for second half of the show)

  I would rank this as a very "I cared enough about the cast and premise to want to pay attention but it wasn't keeping me nailed to my seat" show.

  The premise is that two siblings (more on that later) run an item loaning shop in the Edo period, but with a twist -- several of their items are tsukumogami, items that have gained a soul (typically after 100 years in mythology but in this show it's shortened with an emphasis on items that have been loved instead) which can work as investigators for the various mysteries that the lenders are called upon to help resolve.

  It’s charming in its low-stakes mysteries and smaller but fairly stable cast of characters that all start to fit into the larger mystery of a missing incense burner that haunts the relationship between the main protagonists, and how that situation came about.

  If I had one big criticism, it’d be the relationship between the two main characters. Who are siblings! Oh wait actually they’re cousins! Cousins-in-law, specifically! Oh but also also, the boy’s actually adopted, so they’re not related by blood at all! Which like... Okay. This was a convoluted way to set up a romance, and I don't know what it says about my history with anime that I had a moment of "well at least they're establishing that they're NOT siblings I suppose". I kinda understood it more near the end where it was elaborated more as how Seiji sets up this emotional "no, she's my 'sister' so I can't love her" wall between him and Oko all because he was under the impression that she’s still in love with another man, Satoro -- but then this all gets completely rebuffed in a single scene where Oko reveals that she's been over Satoro for years now. Good grief.

  I’m torn between “this makes sense as Seiji and Sataro mirror each other in this mystery but like did they have to be set up as siblings in the first place, why not just say they were childhood friends or adoptive siblings from the very start?” Felt like drama for drama’s sake I suppose.

  If there's a major highlight for me, it was with Hansuke from episode 8. I’m not sure if I’m meant to believe that Hansuke has fully adopted a transmasc identity or if Hansuke is meant to be perceived purely as a cross-dressing cis woman still; the anime only ever refers to them with male pronouns I think (I’m not nearly good enough at Japanese to catch it in the audio) so I’m wondering if it’s the former. Pretty cool either way, I love that Hansuke was able to continue his business and identity without having to go through a “I’m actually a REAL WOMAN UwU” transformation. As for the rest of the cast, they were fine in that "believable but nothing to write home about" sort of way. It was nice to see reoccurring faces though, and how they all start to fit together.

  Overall, I would say this was a cute little show! Feels like a sad little rarity to watch a story that covers all its plot points satisfactorily even if it didn’t “wow” me at every turn.

  Continue on AniList

SIMILAR ANIMES YOU MAY LIKE

• ANIME

  DramaNatsume Yuujinchou
• ANIME

  SupernaturalFukigen na Mononokean
• ANIME

  DramaKakuriyo no Yadomeshi
• ANIME

  ComedyMiira no Kaikata
• ANIME

  ActionMononogatari
• ONA

  MysteryTasokare Hotel