earlene.hyatt - 2014-08-13 20:23:44

Story: This is a story about a little girl who lives in an old house in the mountains. Her name is Bincho-tan. Each episode depicts a day in the life of Bincho-tan as she prepares her breakfast in the morning, goes to the forest to gather vegetables, does her household chores and rests at night after a day's work. Binchou is an orphan but she is not lonely as she is also surrounded by a group of close friends and animals who add color to her ordinary yet simple life.

The first two episodes have little to no dialogue and just show Bincho-tan living the daily life and what she normally does everyday from retrieving ingredients for dinner, to riding on ducks, to using birds as buses and flying over to a village and back. There is occasionally some bits of words from Binchou-tan and an oddly out of place narrator, but for the most part it really works and the environments speak for itself as to how beautiful the world truly is (even though it is kind of out dated :P). There is much more output in an artwork than a character monologue and I'm glad they did not go for that monologue route, even in the later episodes.

Animation: Almost everyone in this show is a chibi, smaller and cuter versions of normal anime characters. Usually they kind of bother me with how sometimes they make the chibis' look like but it actually really doesn't bother me here. The characters all have good designs and it isn't creepy or hard to look at. Actually now that I think about it, I think some of the characters (who seems to be pretty young) are like that so it can contrast with all the adults and other characters in the show. I guess all that literally identifies them with colorful personalities (especially since... they're literally... all different... colored... AHEM). Character movements are also very fluid and nice aside from some repetitive-ness between some characters and a lazily animated ED (but its not easy to notice) so almost no problems here.

Sound: The voice acting is top notch, everyone sounds right and fitting for their characters and you can tell there's a lot of emotion and power put into the performances between them all and it makes it pretty believable also. The ED song while I complained about it being lazily animated (characters do not move much at all), the song is still incredibly catchy and is nice to listen to. It sounds more like it should be the OP as it feels more like a theme song (especially since they tell you the story and Binchou-tan's character... sort of). The OP is not bad, its just the song is kind of forgettable. Its animation however is pretty stellar and can get you pretty excited to watch the show.

Characters: Speaking of which, let's talk about them all.

Binchou-tan is a young girl who lives by herself in an old house far from town and as her name suggests, she often wears a piece of charcoal on her head. She's an observant, hardworking child and is willing to do all kinds of jobs given to her, like for instance deodorizing shoes. She is able to change her size, and may have other, unspecified abilities.

Chiku-tan is an enthusiastic person who enjoys inventing things and helping others. Her hair is held with a piece of bamboo charcoal and the end moves when she has ideas, usually during problems. Like Binchō-tan, Chiku-tan also lives far from town in an old house but lives with others, her younger sister, Chiku-rin and her grandfather. She is afraid of ghosts and was one of the first human friends Binchou-tan ever made.

Kunugi-tan is a rich girl living in a mansion with many servants. Kunugi-tan is still very lonely despite being surrounded by many older people as well as her school peers. Its not like she hates her rich life, its just that she wants to make some friends and go outside on adventures for a quick change, and it all changed when she met Binchou-tan in the sky.

Ren-tan is a miko and as such enjoys playing a mokugyo and communicating with spirits. When Ren-tan summons spirits, they often approach Chiku-tan, much to her dismay. She lives at a Buddhist temple with her grandparents and enjoys eating dango. She has amazing luck and always wins raffles. On occasion she also wears a pair of glasses Chiku-tan gave to her after helping her with a raffle. Its not stated I think but it could be implied that she's trying to get to the netherworld someday...

Aroe is a young girl whose hair is made of Aloe, which does not benefit her as she often requires water (I guess its cause her hair is like a... plant?). Aroe's aloe-made hair bursts many of her vinyl wading pools due to its sharpness. Aroe is very clumsy, hates the heat and cold, and often is seen throughout the series in a dizzy state, sometimes due to needing water and on other occasions due to misfortune.

The rest of the characters are not bad, in fact they're quite good, its just that you probably won't remember much of them by the time the shoe is done.

Enjoyment: Enjoyment is very high, one of the only other problems I have with the show was the ending, it wasn't bad but I feel the last episode should have ended an episode earlier. However its just a nitpick and that last episode and ending are still pretty dang good.

Overall: I wish this anime got more love and attention. This is definitely a must watch for anyone who likes slice of life and cute girls doing cute things. Someone is waiting and calling for you~

Thanks for reading my 56th review~