While I enjoyed Re-Kan! I was confused by it at the same time. The opening was great as it showed a young high school girl, Hibiki, getting ready for her first day at a new school. I was instantly tired of that trope, but whatever. On her way she comes across Narumi who goes to the same school. They cross the street together, but for some reason Hibiki begins freaking out and dancing around as she crosses the road. Narumi helps her across since she’s just sitting in the road. When they get across she begins to scold her, but Hibiki explains that it’s not “his” fault. Suddenly Narumi looks up in a mirror and sees a fucking Juon little boy attached to Hibiki’s leg!! Fuck me it was scary and caught me off guard.

From there we flash forward a few weeks and meet Hibiki’s friends and learn that she’s still weird as shit, but everyone is used to it. Basically she can talk to the dead and they’re sometimes assholes because she can talk/interact with them. Meanwhile Narumi avoids Hibiki like the plague because she doesn’t believe or like anything occult. Hibiki asks for Narumi’s help one day and they kind of become friends.

Hibiki can also talk to cats. It’s random and it’s only purpose is to introduce a cat character that’s a total pervert. It was probably my second favorite part of the show. Picture an adorable little kitten with a deep voice and totally perverted.

My thing with this show is I’m not sure if it wants to be a comedy, dark comedy or just a horror. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to laugh at those other parts… no I definitely was supposed to, but it really does come across as genre identity confusion because of it. When it’s going for comedy that’s all it’s going for. When it’s going for horror that’s all it’s going for. The two don’t overlap and so it makes for sharp shifts in the style which isn’t the best thing for the audience.

It also comes across a little like the “Monogatari” series… which if there’s one thing is shouldn’t try to be or go for it’s the Monogatari series because it simply won’t compare. The animation isn’t as good, the characters are nowhere as original or interesting and the supernatural element is at best a poor man’s version. It might not be what they were going for, but there’s a setting that looks extremely similar.

I’ll be back for the next episode. I don’t know if I’ll like it, but I want to see what happens. I don’t know if there’s more character depth coming, but I hope so. I think that would help the story a lot. Otherwise the horror element might be enough to make it tolerable, but I don’t know for how long. Hopefully the identity becomes clearer as well because otherwise it could really sink what could be an interesting series.

Score: 3/5

Re-Kan! 1.1 - "I Can See Them" Official Website