Nakano is an employee of an exploitative “black” company, who meets a divine fox spirit named Senko. While she looks like a young girl, Senko is in fact 800 years old. She offers to spoil Nakano as much as possible, and begins looking after him. – ANN
Streaming: Crunchyroll and Funimation
Episodes: 12
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: Nakano’s days are filled to the brim with mind-numbing office work. His workdays are so long that they’re literally beginning to suck the life out of him. He listlessly takes the last train home once again, and stumbles into his apartment only to find the door unlocked and the lights on. Inside is a honey-colored fox girl cooking dinner at Nakano’s stove.
The fox goddess on high has taken pity on Nakano’s plight, and sent Senko-san, one of her demigods, to help set things right. Though Nakano is a bit weirded-out by the presence of the youthful fox spirit, it’s hard to argue with a hot meal, a good cup of tea, and a fluffy tail to pet. Senko-san asks for nothing in return, as her care is literally priceless; she chalks this all up to the whim of an 800-year-old demi-god. But Nakano has the strange sense that he’s been in the presence of this particular spiritual being before.
Impressions: My modern first-world life affords me a lot of conveniences and pleasures. Admittedly some of those things come at a hefty cost. Having a cell phone (both a personal one and one I use for work) means that, unless I make the very conscious decision to turn everything off, I’m always reachable no matter where I go. I spend time at my job making sure that my skills are indispensable, which usually means volunteering for more projects, coming in on the occasional weekend for equipment tests, and generally trading a fraction of my own time for the promise of job security and a good raise at the end of the year. I still manage to maintain a decent work-life balance because I’m lucky enough to work somewhere that isn’t technically in operation over the weekends, which pays me well, and which has an office culture which isn’t predicated upon mindless self-devotion to the cause. But despite that I still find that I can fall into the trap of giving too much of myself.
Japan, from all that I know of the country, has cultivated its own extreme expectations of its white collar working class. Most of us are familiar with the image of the salaryman working until nightfall, perhaps going out for drinks with his boss and coworkers, and stumbling onto the last train (or even falling asleep on the street somewhere). There’s an instinctual desire to look at this situation as some kind of comical extreme, because examining and addressing it as a serious issue is complicated and uncomfortable. I think most of us can agree, though, that these workers are profoundly exhausted on a constant basis and this is not ideal.
Iyashi-kei or “healing-type” Japanese entertainment comes in many forms, but its hallmark is, of course, its focus on providing good feelings to the audience in lieu of more plot-based entertainment. It’s a sub genre that targets all types of audiences, because all of us need a little comfort now-and-again. In that sense, Senko-san’s motivations are understandable and obvious; since one of the more put-upon segments of Japanese society are the overburdened office-workers, why not create a story that specifically speaks to their suffering? Theoretically, I don’t have a problem with this. In practice, however, there’s something about this episode that doesn’t sit quite right with me.
There’s a trope in anime that I’m not fond of, which I usually call “she’s actually an 800-year-old vampire” (in honor of Dance in the Vampire Bund, an anime series that I watched to completion for reasons unknown). Certain creators seem fond of packaging a centuries-old character into the body of a pre-pubescent girl, a practice which often feels as though it’s meant to skirt around age-of-consent laws in a cunning way. It’s not always the case that the end goal is lewdness with a simulated minor, but there are enough examples out there that this setup usually sets off a few red flags for me.
There’s a scene in the second half of the episode where Nakano asks to rub the fluffy fur on Senko-san’s tail. She’s reticent at first, but eventually lets him do it, all the while squirming and making noises that fall somewhere in between discomfort and ecstasy. This could probably be explained away as her being ticklish, or sensitive about having her hair touched. I certainly know that my personal image of Heaven involves having my hair brushed, so I get that, at least. However, the situation is framed in a way that makes it come across as much less innocent than it sounds, complete with climactic build-up and a red-faced character left dripping with sweat in the aftermath. Hmm.
That’s really what makes this episode frustrating to me. It’s clearly meant to be cute, fun, and relaxing, portraying a mental reprieve for someone whose life is as stressful as one would imagine. Yet I’m sitting at my computer, watching as a very child-like character has a very flushed reaction to having her tail rubbed, and worrying that the series is going to go South before I realize it. It’s difficult to chill when you’re concerned about showing up on some FBI list somewhere.
There’s also a decent amount of commentary one could make about the budding relationship between the two characters. Senko-san’s repeated insistence that she’s there to pamper Nakano with food, drink, and comfort without asking anything in return, feels as though it’s aimed outwardly at folks who are annoyed by the prospect of having to work through a relationship with someone on equal footing. Because the fox girl is a goddess, her (illusionary) subservience can be explained away as a whim of hers rather than the broader, garden-variety hankering for archaic gender roles that’s pretty obvious once you start looking.
In the end I think it’s plain to see that this is an Iyashi-kei series whose healing aspects are aimed at an audience whose life experiences are vastly different to mine. I’ve certainly had some tough days at work, spending long hours at my desk trying to work through some issue that’s cropped-up mysteriously. I know what it’s like to be delegated an unreasonable number of tasks, and how it feels to have to fix someone else’s errors. But I don’t have the desire to be waited-on hand and foot, especially when nothing’s being asked of me in return. If I feel as though I’m making someone else’s day more difficult it just ends up stressing me out; I begin to picture myself in their shoes and then it just causes me to feel guilty. My suspicion is that any one person’s enjoyment of this series will depend greatly on the things in life they find pleasant, the manners in which they feel put-upon in their life, as well as their tolerance toward youthful-looking female leads. As much as I suspect that this is actually a pretty cute series, I’ve got a little bit too much anime-related baggage to enjoy it.
Pros: The setup focuses on a segment of Japanese society that definitely needs a break.
Cons: The underage-looking character seems like “getting off on a technicality.” Its relaxing aspects may only be such for a very specific type of person.
Grade: C