We found ourselves shockingly caught up on all of our anime this morning (well, most of our anime; we started watching the Actually, I Am... anime, but after two episodes it caught up to where we are in the manga, so we're going to wait to watch more until after we translate more), so instead of using that extra time in productive ways, we decided to try out a new series. We glanced over the Crunchyroll simulcasts and our eyes landed on Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches. Since the creator was at Anime Expo and Kodansha was having a little giveaway thing, the title stood out. But with a title like Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, it didn't seem very likely that many of our favorite voice actors were in it, so we hesitated. The question was who plays Yamada-kun, because if he's played by a superfavorite, it doesn't matter if all the other characters are girls.
Well, there was only one way to find out, and that was to watch it. Okay, so there are actually several other ways to find out, but that one tends to be our favorite when we're not too pressed for time (or at least under the illusion that we're not; Saturdays are like that--they seem like we have lots of time in the morning, and then as the day progresses it feels like we never had any time at all). So we watched it! Ha HA!
And Yamada-kun wasn't played by a superfavorite. But he
was played by a potential up-and-coming favorite, and more importantly, the story was too interesting to pass up. And best of all, there turned out to be more than one male character. As a matter of fact, the title makes it sound like a harem series, but so far (two episodes in), the story doesn't seem super haremy. Maybe a little haremy, but no more than your average shojo manga is reverse-haremy.
So what's it about? It's about a guy who's like a delinquent kid, doing terribly in school, all the kids are scared of him, all the teachers have written him off, etc. etc. Then one day as he's brooding over the annoyingness of honor students, he slips on the stairs and falls down, taking an honor student with him. And then they switch bodies.
Frankly, we're still trying to figure out where the "seven witches" factor in to all of this, but maybe it just comes up later. But anyway, mad-capped mayhem ensues, and it's really a lot of fun. It also seems to have a theme of walking in someone else's shoes, like that quote that makes the rounds on Facebook, "everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about, so be kind. Always." And that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Plus, the characters are a lot of fun! Yamada-kun is played by Ryota Osaka, the same voice actor we were talking about on...whatever day it was we were talking about Snow White with the Red Hair. Tuesday? Anyway, he's Prince Zen in that. And the honor student, Urara Shiraishi, is played by Saori Hayami, who plays Shirayuki! It's the same couple! Awwwww♥
And then in episode two, they introduce characters played by Jun Fukuyama and Daisuke Ono, so that makes us very happy indeed. There's still a guy in the opening sequence who hasn't been introduced, so I'm still hoping that our beloved Kaji-kun will be in it, too, but even if he's not, we like it and we're excited to watch more! ...Sometime when we feel like we have free time again.
Today I'm thankful for getting to watch another fun new (to us) anime, ice cream being on super sale at the grocery store (four pints of Ben & Jerry's for just ten dollars!), getting to see some unusual tagging on the way to the store (pink glitter paint--most unusual), the self control not to go buying a bazillion star boxes, and Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches.
