Karin ep.1

November 3, 2005 | 17 Comments

Ending Theme: 「もうひとつのバースディ」 - Mou hitotsu no birthday by Fm.8 (9MB, for PSP/Quicktime)

Wow, this is another nice anime from J.C Staff. It looks like they've learned a few tricks from producing Honey and Clover. This anime uses similar nice-looking airbrushed background that was featured in that other series. In addition to this, the series uses a really strong colour palette. As a a result, each frame is really nice to look at. You really have to see this yourself to appreciate the quality of the style. As a side note, the sponsor's announcement is actually delivered in English language. I wonder if that means the producers are very aware of the likelihood of the series being watched by the English-speaking audiences. Anyway, at the moment there is no opening theme but there is a simple ending theme.

The episode begins with a shot of a boy standing at a riverside when all of a sudden, a girl approaches him. The sun then turns red and the girl is now biting the boy's neck, revealing the fact that she's a vampire. Later on it turns out that this is simply a dream of a high school girl called Maaka Karin. She realises that her heart is beating fast after the dream and laments the probability that 'that day' has finally come again. She also says that even though she lives in a family of five, she's always alone in the morning. Anyway, after finishing breakfast Karin leaves her home to go to school. At school, Karin doesn't participate in PE class so her classmate, Maki, asks her if she feels sick. Since Karin can't explain her condition, she simply agrees with her friend. Maki is not surprised to hear this since apparently Karin has been like this since middle school.

Meanwhile a new transfer student has just arrived late at the school. The teacher tells the student that his class is actually outside doing PE but wonders if it's too embarrassing for him to introduce himself like this. The guy, however, doesn't mind this in the slightest so the teacher takes him to the sports field. Outside he introduces himself to Karin and her classmates as Usui Kenta. Upon seeing Kenta, however, Karin feels her heart throbbing really fast and ends up falling unconscious on the field. Karin is eventually taken to the infirmary by Maki but when there are only the two of them, her desire to bite her friend is rising. Thankfully she manages to control herself before she bites Maki on the neck. However, when she returns to the class and sees Kenta again, she feels her urge rising once more so she has no choice but to run away from the class.

Once Karin manages to run away from Kenta, she text-messages her sister, Anju asking for help and proceeds to go home on her own. However, on her way home, her vision becomes distorted and she eventually passes out in front of a guy. However, when the guy tries to get away, Karin grabs his leg and then proceeds to sink her fangs into the guy's neck. Kenta, who happens to take a shortcut through the woods inadvertently sees Karin hugging the seemingly older-looking guy. Meanwhile, Karin who, now feels a lot better after biting the guy, is approached by a grey-haired girl, who proceeds to emit some kind of yellow gas into the guy to make him forget. The girl turns out to be none other than Maaka Anju, Karin's little sister. Karin is grateful for Anju's help but Anju's doll, Boogie-kun, is not happy with the fact that someone would have noticed the incident had Anju didn't come.

Anju, however, tells her sister to just go home now because their parents are about to awake soon. Along the way, however, Boogie-kun and Karin bickers about the possibility of someone seeing this. Of course, Kenta comes out of his hiding and looks perplexed about the entire incident especially after the bite victim suddenly wakes up and starts to run as if nothing happened. The two eventually go home just in time to witness their father being bullied by their mother for unable to provide her with the kind of blood that she prefers. Karin then comes into the room and switches on the light and promptly gets her head smacked by her mother. It looks like Karin is the only one in the family who can't see in the darkness so every time she turns on the light, it's too bright for everyone else. Anyway, Karin introduces her parents as Carrera and Henry Marker, two European vampires who migrated to Japan.

Karin is about to introduce her older brother but it seems he's away at a girl's house. Later on that night, Karin wonders why the new transfer student caused such reactions in her. The next day, however, Karin is back to her usual positive self. That is until she bumps into Kenta and ends up showing parts of herself she probably should not have. She promptly becomes embarrassed and her heart starts beating really fast. Since Karin always end up getting some kind of unwanted reaction every time she sees Kenta, she decides to run away from him. Eventually Kenta is annoyed about Karin's behaviour and decides to confront her. But this almost caused her to fall onto the stairwell so Kenta proceeds to catch her hand. The result, however, is disastrous because Karin immediately can't control her own reaction and begins to spurt gallons of blood from her nose, revealing the fact that as a vampire, she doesn't suck blood but rather releases it out.

Impression:

This is a really nice first episode for the series. The storyline is entertaining and the animation is a delight to watch. I also like the fact that Takahashi Mikako, who voiced Yamada on Honey and Clover gets to voice Maki, Karin's best friend. And she sounds quite similar to Yamada here although a lot happier and playful in general. Character-wise, Karin and Kenta have a lot of chemistry and it's not hard to see where this is going. The only small problem I have with this adaptation is probably the character design of Anju. She looks quite different from the manga version and her design looks quite inconsistent from one frame to another. The ending theme is also quite cheesy but it's nothing offensive and it's kind of funny to see Kenta looking excited being offered a cake. For some reason, I got the impression that he is more excited about the cake itself than the fact that a girl spent the time to make him one.

© memento 2003