Jingai-San No Yome Anime Series Review

The Happy Marriage Should Be Just The Beginning

There isn’t a lot to say about this short anime from Autumn 2018. With just three minutes each episode and over a minute of that being the theme song played at the end of each episode (with only episode 12 actually continuing the episode during the credits) there just wasn’t much substance to Jingai-San no Yome.

I’m not even really sure why I watched this each week. Part of me was drawn in by the premise because the idea of a normal high school student being told that they are now married to a monster and they have to move in with them seems kind of interesting. However, the fundamentals of how this works or why it happens are never actually touched upon or explored (that would probably require them to get off their happy floaty cloud and actually deal with reality for a moment).

And Jingai-San is definitely not interested in touching base with reality.

There’s no real problem with a romantic fantasy and all, but even if we just accept the premise at face value and never question it, the relationship itself just kind of happens. The protagonist, Hinowa, more or less liked the monster’s (Kanenogi) fluffiness and from almost episode one we see him regularly blush and hug Kanenogi but any actual basis for a relationship is never explored. They do get a few sweet moments together where they look out for one another during sickness, or cheer the other on at the sports carnival, but there’s never any real grounds for their relationship other than it simply exists.

Rather than doing anything to develop the premise, the story instead has Hinowa encounter other students who also have monster partners and then they all hang out. They talk at school, they walk home together, they spend time with their partners, and that is all there is to this anime.

You could argue that at three minutes an episode there wasn’t much else they could do, and given this is apparently based on a 4-koma manga (essentially 4 panel), it would be kind of a mistake to expect depth. However, I think after twelve episodes we needed a little bit more other than a blushing Hinowa to carry the anime.

Visually this one is quite soft looking, though the character designs are a little odd. The two toned hair thing is just a bit bizarre and I’m not sure why they’ve done it. Otherwise, the characters are distinct enough, the monster designs are suitably cute but monster looking, and the backgrounds are pretty simple but work well enough.

Now, given almost half the run time is the closing song, it is a good thing that it is a high energy song that is just kind of fun to bop along to, but you have to wonder if the time would have been better served on actually writing a plot.

Realistically at 3 minutes an episode you can watch this whole series in under forty minutes, though I suspect binge watching it may cause your brain to liquefy under the gooey-sugary-sweetness of the protagonist, but it actually is entertaining enough for the time commitment. However, as I said on Twitter, more than once, I just don’t know what the point of this anime is. Maybe there is no point other than being a cute little diversion. However, that makes it very hard to actually recommend.

Ultimately, this isn’t bad, but there just isn’t much substance here.

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Karandi James

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