Review of Ya Boy Kongming!
As someone who normally has problems watching ongoing anime, may it be tedious or agonizing to watch, which I am still doing now, but my own curiosity would reinvigorate me to try something new, interesting, or never seen before. When I first heard about a random anime called ‘Paripi Koumei’ in anime news, I assumed that it would be a bad anime, normally because the premise felt bizarre and unconvincing, believing it to be a mess. So, I avoided it, judging it to be terrible and unworthy of my attention. What’s hilarious is how it took 4 episodes for me to finally start watching itand boy, have I never been so wrong.
‘Never judge a book by its cover.’
Paripi Koumei never was part of my watch plan, as I already had plenty of others to watch, Heroine Tarumono! Kiraware Heroine to Naisho no Oshigoto, Skeleton Knight in Another World and even dumb Komi-san can’t Communicate. What exactly happened was that I got real curious about it after I took a look at other anime besides the ones I’m watching this season.
I shouldn’t be beating around the bush, about the anime, it’s really well done.
Its bizarre premise is about Kongming, an incredible tactician that originally came from The Three Kingdoms and decides to help a depressed girl named Eiko who took music as her last resort of living after just randomly stumbling into a local nightclub. What had me hooked on it was how well it was executed, establishing dynamic character chemistry and interesting strategies being implemented into the plans of garnering attention to Eiko, the uprising underdog of the music industry with her beautiful voice, as Kongming states. In a way, an underdog story had me invested in what it had to offer. It’s quite amusing to see Paripi Koumei getting attention as more episodes came along, eventually becoming one of the better shows of this Spring.
The thing is that it’s a reverse isekai, which many of its predecessors have done and added their twists to it. The twist here is that unlike The Devil is a Part-Timer, this one is dozen times better than it and has good music.
In every episode, the main heroine, Eiko would always encounter obstacles on her way to stardom. After that, it becomes Kongming’s job to carve an effective way for Eiko to overcome it, while Kongming does his job to create havoc amongst the audience and focus their attention on Eiko, so that she can win the hearts of her audience, earning her fans. The story does try to vary, with instead, Eiko having to go outside and find herself by travelling somewhere a bit different from her own zone, introducing another character to the picture. Though, its formulaic approach done with effective execution and lovable characters made the story worth watching.
Now, I would be lying if Paripi Koumei didn’t have some flaws. Despite the dynamic chemistry between the characters, the detail put into most of the characters are simplistic and fictional, while they go through obstacles which is inevitably true, their dialogues, motivations, and actions are of a generic protagonist. I won’t deny that the characters are properly conveyed through their way of weaving through obstacles, but we need to look back. Randomly does something that soothes the heart of its target? Check. Has one character originally saying no but decided to come back and do it anyway? Check. A dramatic plot twist where a random stranger so happens to be their opponent? Check. The simple things that happened in this story are predictable and easy to follow. But I’m not here to say that the anime is crap. With the simplistic characters, how are they still worth the attention? Clearly the voice acting is the solution, making them a lot of fun to watch because it was great watching the characters come to life with their in-character voices, absorbing me into the anime.
About the music, it’s easily the best part of Paripi Koumei. The singers of their characters have done phenomenally well in this adaptation. The opening and ending are iconic to listen to, but they are just the appetizer, the real treat is when you listen to the songs the character poured their heart into it to make it a blast. The raps, the emotion, and the soul were fully captured by the singers. Long story short; they are incredible singers.
As for the art and animation, it’s alright. For a P.A Works animation, they did a good job adapting it. It’s flashy and a treat for the eyes. The CGI can be a bit distracting, but it didn’t bother me much, nonetheless. The character designs also look clean and great especially Kongming, giving off the aura of an intelligent wise tactician and practically stands out the most out of all the characters in this anime.
Is this anime for everyone? I wouldn’t think so, but I am sure this is for people who want a breath of fresh air from all the mediocrity they have watched after dozens of generic anime bullshit and tropes being replayed for the millionth time. Overall, I really like Paripi Koumei and I would consider it as the best of this season if it weren’t for Spy x Family and Kaguya-sama 3rd season.