DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ComedyMikakunin de Shinkoukei
OVA ComedyMikakunin de Shinkoukei: Mite. Are ga Watashitachi no Tomatteiru Ryokan yo.
OVA ComedyMikakunin de Shinkoukei: Kamo Nikutte Midori-ppoi Aji ga suru no ne.
TV SHORT ComedyDanna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken

REVIEWS

• 

  tenryuu

  80/100
  A heartwarming rom-com with cute sisters, cute friends, cute boy, cute mums and an Unidentified twist

  I finished Engaged to the Unidentified yesterday. I can say from the bottom of the heart, this is probably the romance anime I appreciate the most.
  The ending SUCKED but I do love supernatural animes. Supernatural + Slice of life is a staple to me, but + Romance and I usually avoid it. But..this was all 100% wholesome and not lewd at all so perfect for me.

  As I said in the first paragraph the ending was really lackluster. It felt like unnecessary drama in the end of episode 11, suddenly the two family members were gone. Then the ED rolls as normal, same with the OP in episode 12..and in Episode 12 the bumpers were still there, cute and all, as if there was no drama going on at all.

  If you've ever watched Idolmaster Cinderella Girls you'll see how they deal with drama with about 2/3 episodes with a simpler OP as just a title card instead. The uplift of a catchy OP and ED feel out of place for something that may see our protagonists injured or hurt in ways unexpected from previous episodes. I would like to compare this to Toradora too; you will understand what I mean if you have watched it, so I won't spoil.

  After Kobeni finally gets found, suddenly we see a nice reunion that I felt made a nice full circle, maybe we'll get to know these neighbours, but nope. Suddenly her sister, mother and friend appear in a helicopter. I guess it was supposed to be funny, and I probably would've found it funny, but I was shook at finally finding out the mysteries that were repeated throughout the series so I didn't feel it was appropriate.

  I have yet to watch the OVAs of the show so I can't say if they solidify as a great ending or are unrelated. Either way, the series has something for everybody. Doga Kobo's older shows are well worth watching, as well as what they have been releasing the past 5 years.

  They're most well known for their slice of life, and most recently the two lolicon protagonists in their adaptations (see UzaMaid and Wataten) but it seems they can adapt just about anything well. For their Gabriel Dropout adaptation they shuffled around chapters of the manga and made their own characters and stories to go with it. Very dedicated studio who can make almost anything with some love.

  I have not read the manga so I have nothing to compare in that regard, but all I will say is that I really enjoyed this anime.

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• 

  Creature247

  81/100
  A brilliant Romance / Comedy that pulls out all the stops to create a great but absurd show! (Spoilers)

  Engaged to the Unidentified (Mikakunin de Shinkoukei) is a great show. Although it may have some things that I think that could be made better (We'll get to this later) I think it is a brilliant example of a high quality romance comedy. One of the things that I think that makes this show so good is the constant mocking of romance comedies. We can see this happening mainly by the character Benio, who sometimes says "I feel a little sick, I think I can smell a romance comedy" This is particularly effective as these comments always come after an intense romance scene. These comments highlight and comedify ( comedy - ify? ) these romance scenes. It also creates comedic relief.

  Looking at the romance scenes, the main characters are Kobeni and Hakuya, a wholesome sixteen year old and a gloomy looking teenage boy. We find out later in the series that Hakuya and Mashiro (Hakuya's 10 year old sister) isn't exactly human ( hence engaged to the Unidentified) We don't ever find out exactly what Hakuya and his sister are, but we know that they can move very fast and jump very high (we know this as we see Hakuya move incredibly fast and later in the show we see Mashiro jump across rooftops). We also learn that they are (or at least their personalities are) an animal. We never find out what animal Mashiro is but we do find out that Hakuya is a dog, which fits his personality very well. It fits his personality well as he is quiet, follows people around, sleeps a lot and is incredibly loyal to Kobeni, whom he finds himself to be engaged to.

  Kobeni and Hakuya are first introduced to each other when their grandfather decided that they are going to get married and arranged an arranged marriage. When they meet, Hakuya moves to Kobeni's house from the mountains (along with his adorable sister Mashiro). There are many jokes about Hakuya and Mashiro not knowing much about the world, and as much as I enjoyed these, I do think that they are overused. Moving Hakuya and Mashiro into the house causes some issues though, Benio has a large role in creating many of the running jokes and gags, the main one of which being that she sees Mashiro (Her sister in law) as her little sister. This doesn't go over well with Mashiro, who thinks that Benio is creepy and scary. Unfortunately for Mashiro everyone else sees things differently as at school, Benio is almost perfect. Being a top student, a member of the student council and incredibly popular. One popular gag is that Mashiro (Being 10) thinks that Benio is using some magical poisonous gas to brainwash the students.

  Romance wise, I think the show does a very good job of creating two loveable characters who get on very well. Personally I think there are some ways that the show could have done a better job at expressing the romance between the two, such as spreading the romance scenes throughout the show rather that having most of them near the end (Yes I know that more romance near the end produces a sense of progression in the relationship). Other than this, I think the show does a great job of producing a comedic and romantic feeling. This show has also become one of my favourite slice of life anime and I'd like to congratulate the creators on creating a great show. If you're reading this and you haven't watched the show (even though I put spoilers in the title) I would suggest watching this immediately.

  Overall, I really enjoyed this show, and, although it had it's errors, I think this show couldn't have been much better. One thing that didn't really stand out to me is the opening, that I think wasn't particularly rememberable. I really enjoyed the ending though. If I had to put a score on it, I would rate this show an 8.1/10.

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• 

  Sebnem

  82/100
  An anime which shows how to combine slice of life and rom-com in a correct and nice way.

  After finishing my 3th rewatch 4 days ago, I decided to write my first review about Mikakunin de Shinkoukei. As one of the first animes I watched in 2015, it had a special impact on me, especially with its nice comedy, adorable characters and moe factor. I hope you will enjoy my review. (≧▽≦)

  Story and Plot:

  Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is basically the story of a girl called Kobeni, who on her sixteenth birthday is suddenly told that she is engaged to the mysterious boy, Hakuya. Very creative, right? Well, for half of the show fits standard fare in terms of a Slice of Life and rom-com with a lot of moe. The latter half is where the show begins to peak when we learn the Mitsumines are not ordinary folk living on mountains and the connection with Kobeni is linked to a long forgotten accident, leading to the reason behind this engagement. Even if this doesn’t change the overall situations in episodes in my eyes, it is a factor which makes the story a little bit more interesting and different from other shows. The idea of including non-human characters in a slice of life anime might sound weird, even if it doesn’t’ change main process of the anime. I personally still think Mikakunin de Shinkoukei can be only defined as a slice of life, however however fantasyor something similar could’ve been an added genre.

  One of the weakest points of Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is some unconnected scenes one after another. In my opinion the main reason of it is manga, which consist of different and short chapters with simple designed panels. Besides the scenes with another, almost all scenes are well connected in their own plots. It wouldn’t be wrong to say Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is an episodic anime, however it doesn’t have a specific storyline either. The main idea of the whole show is making the characters as cute and funny as possible, which the anime succeeds in general. Only 12th episode has a different process than the others as a dramatic episode, which is not a problem for me. I even enjoyed watching such a nice episode.

  Characters and Relationships:

  

  As the very main character we have Kobeni. I personally think she is like an average character who we can see in every slice of life + rom-com anime. Well, I can’t really say I love Kobeni that much, since she is unnecessarily emotional and overreacting at some scenes. However, she has some nice characteristics that cause some funny scenes in addition, so also I can’t say she is an unqualified main character. For me the expression “normal” matches her with every single feature of her. At the end I can just respect her housework skills and big boobs.

  

  In a slice of life anime which could be defined specifically as a “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” (CGDCT) anime, there must be a character who brings moe wherever she goes. For that role we have Mashiro, our little sister-in-law. With every action she does, she is always so adorable. It makes totally sense that she is the main target of Benio with her cute characteristic and sister-like behaviors. It is also cute that she tries to act mature, but every time she tries to be older than her age, she fails. Together with her interest on UMAs, Mashiro is a character that every moe fan would love for sure.

  

  Benio is my personal favorite character in Mikakunin de Shinkuokei. I heard from a lot of people that they find her annoying or repellent, but still nobody can ignore the fact that she is the main source of the whole comedy in this anime. In my opinion, without Benio, Mikakunin de Shinkoukei would be simple and boring. Even though her sister-complex might seem too much at some cases, I think that this just makes Benio a better character.

  

  I actually don’t have much to say about Hakuya. He barely speaks during the episodes and he doesn’t heve a proper personality or character development. While rewatching the show, I realized again that his most important role is to be there and keep existing. However, at some points I think that he fits the main idea of anime which is made to be a slice of life.

  Except that 4 main characters, Mikakunin de Shinkoukei includes 6 more supporting characters in total. Even though they are not totally awesome designed, all of them has an equal personality at a level worthy for their role.

  In addition to single characteristics, the most important equality of Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is the great combined relationships between characters. First of all, there is a romantic relationship between Kobeni and Hakuya, which takes the biggest attention on audience’s eyes. Because of Hakuya’s weak personality in general, their relationship can’t go far away from a single hug, however in the following volumes of manga, these two characters become a little bit closer than in the anime. In following, an another remarkable point is the relationship of Benio with all sister-like characters in anime. Not only in Kobeni, but her interest in Mashiro is enough to make me enjoy this show. Unlike Kobeni, Masiro finds that huge attention that benio gives her really annoying and tries to put her off. This annoyed expressions of Mashiro made me smile or laugh a lot of times. In addition we have two powerful friendship situations between Kobeni and Mayura , Benio and Nadeshiko. Both of the friends of this main characters can be defined as calm similarly, even though Nadeshiko’s personality is much serious than Mayura’s. I personally like Nadeshiko more, with especially the first OVA. Lastly there is the relationship between Mashiro and Setsuna, which I find kind of unnecessary. The reason that Mashiro annoys Benio, who Setsuna adores, makes her hate Mashiro, not in a malicious but in a funny way.

  Animation and Songs:

  I want to start my paragraph with the opening and ending themes. Since I am not that into high pitched voices and energetic music, I would honestly say both songs don’t fit my music taste. The opening of anime, Tomadoi→Recipe (とまどい→レシピ), is actually kind of nice, especially the beginning part makes me addicted to the song a little bit. Unfortunately, I don’t have the same opinion about the ending theme, Masshiro World (まっしろわーるど). It was really not for me which is pretty understandable, since I skipped the song in literally every episode. We also surprisingly have a second ending that could be defined as an insert song, too. 16-sai tte iu no wa Tokubetsu na Kanji da (16歳っていうのは特別な感じだ) by Jun Ichikawa is probably my favorite musical piece including all the other soundtracks. I still wouldn’t listen it in my free time, however, it is not a song I would skip if it was an opening theme. Oh, and we shouldn’t forget great UMA song of course.

  Lastly, there are totally 9 character songs, 3 songs for every main girl (Kobeni, Mashiro and Benio) which I think are the best part of the anime for music lovers. I won’t give my opinion about all of 9 songs here, however I would like to say Kobeni and especially Benio ones are pretty charming and nice.

  With vivid colors and nice character design the show is nice and smoothly animated. In complacence with other popular shows like No Game No Life (MADHOUSE), Your Lie in April (A-1 Pictures) or Noragami (BONES), I would surely say that Mikakunin de Shinkoukei has a simple and easy style. The utilization of white for highlights just makes the colors seem more staring than normal. In addition to these, after looking at some panels of manga, it is easy to say that the animators improved the art style of mangaka in a really good way. Herewith I would say that Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is wonderfully animated in its own way. Great job Doga Kobo!

  Manga and OVAs:

  The anime has 2 additional episodes, each lasting roughly 12 minutes.

  First of them is Mikakunin de Shinkoukei: Mite. Are ga Watashitachi no Tomatteiru Ryokan yo., released at 19th of March 2014. I especially love the first part of this episode which deals with the childhood memories of Kobeni with her sister Benio and Benio’s best friend Nadeshiko. The other part of the episode represents another memory but memory of Mashiro and Hakuya this time. Both parts don’t take part in original manga, which means actually, first OVA of Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is a filler-like episode

  Second OVA, Mikakunin de Shinkoukei: Kamo Nikutte Midori-ppoi Aji ga suru no ne., includes the special edition of the 5th manga volume, and explains the experiences of 5 characters in an onsen trip in a thermal hotel. Mashiro’s interest in UMAs makes this episode totally funny and watchable.

  Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is written and drawn by Cherry Arai if the source of the anime with the same name. I read the manga only until the end of the last episode of the anime and with everything I experienced while reading it I would honestly say that the manga is not much qualified like anime. Despite the fact that the art style is poor, all pages and panels seem so simple and plain that it makes the reader bored after a few chapters. In my opinion if you watched the anime, the manga is inadequate for an enjoyable reading.

  Conclusion:

  To sum up, I want to start with writing all positive and negative aspects of Mikakunin de Shinkoukei:

  • +Some great characters with well thought relationships
  • +Impressive art style
  • +Additional character songs
  • +Nice OVAs
  • +Better than manga for sure
  • +Benio
  • -Weak main lead
  • -Unconnected storyline at some points
  • -Average ending theme
  • -Inadequate manga for people, who want to know what happens after anime

  In conclusion Mikakunin de Shinkoukei is an enjoyable anime with cute characters in my eyes.
  You can find more reviews by me on our site with friends, link in my bio.

  Thanks for reading my first review to the end! Have a great day!
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