Hiiro no Kakera First Impressions

Hiiro no Kakera (Anime, Q2 2012)

Tamaki Kasuga moves back to her family's hometown, where she meets her grandmother and is abruptly given the title of Tamaya Orihime, which I think translates to alter princess(?), whose main duty is to protect the seal on some sacred relic or place.

Along the way she gets attacked by spirits in the woods, displays ghost seeing/busting powers, and meets a mysterious teenage guy who acts as her guide under the orders of her grandmother. This guy turns out to be one of many bodyguards (five in total - might be four) from another family dedicated to protecting her family for many generations; and a classmate - of course.

However, each of the bodyguards introduced in the premiere seems pretty annoying and the main character, Tamaki-san, lacks any special charm. As an otoko myself, this particular reverse harem, ghostbusting anime has almost no appeal for me. I'm not biased against reverse harems in any way; in fact, two of the four manga series I'm actively reading (Ouran and Wallflower) are reverse harems. It's just that this setup doesn't even compare to them at all, despite being decently successful as an otome visual novel game.


Or anything else for that matter; just based on this first episode, I'd already rate it lower than any anime series currently running from this first quarter ... (ok, maybe not lower than Recorder to Randoseru). The one saving grace might be the original OP performed by Maiko Fujita, whose beautiful voice caught my attention last summer. Good to see her catch more exposure for an anime theme!