Well we have our first casualty of the season. Re-Kan!’s first episode was okay and offered a few intense moments, but the weird mixture of horror/supernatural and comedy just isn’t working for me. It really comes across as not knowing if it wanted to be a comedy or a horror story because it doesn’t do both. I know you’re asking, “Can’t it be both?” and yes it can, but it needs to be both at the same time. What happens in Re-Kan! Is that when it’s a comedy it’s only a comedy. When it’s a horror, it’s only a horror. It shifts back and forth and never smoothly which is the hardest part to tolerate. It really wants to be a horror comedy, but it’s not.
This episode Hibiki is sleep walking or more accurately being lead around by a bunch of ghosts most of which are perverts and not only is that weird, but no one acknowledges that it’s creepy. One of the other characters (I forget the name because she does jack shit for the story and two of them have hair over their eyes and act the same which makes them the same character) takes pictures with her phone and can suddenly see ghosts in the pictures. She doesn’t act upon anything and this doesn’t prove anything to the disbeliever, but whatever. In fact the episode would have been better spent establishing why Narumi is so afraid of the occult.
The one and only redeeming thing about the story is a samurai that’s paying back Hibiki for taking care of his grave and feeding him. Since she’s sleeping all the time in class (which is a joke that also doesn’t hit) he answers for her. Everyone can hear him and it’s clearly a dude, but even the teacher just moves on like everything is cool. The funny part comes later when he fucks up saying “Present” and the other students give him shit for it. Then he learns how to email…
This show could be funny. It could be terrifying. It could have kept me as a viewer.
There’s just nothing I want to come back for. The cat was ruined in this episode and clearly they’re going to keep using him for the same cheap pervo jokes. The supporting cast of characters are barely one-dimensional and more than a few of them come across as duplicate characters. That would be fine, but they don’t do anything for the story other than give exposition which is just bad storytelling.
There’s enough out there in this latest batch of anime to really invest your time in and unless you just like the cheesy jokes that this show provides there’s no reason to keep watching. It’s about a girl who can see ghosts and the story isn’t building towards anything else making every episode the same… a girl who can see ghosts. That’s like saying I can eat pizza and trust me no one wants to watch that every week either.
Score: 2/5
Re-Kan! 1.2 – “This Is My Friend” Official Website