Age Appropriate: Any Age
Emotional Response: LOL
Notable Features: high school, martial arts, socially inept students
Language: English
Length: 2 seasons, 50 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Pretty Good
"Your talking is getting in the way of me telling you to shut up." - Takeda
Kenichi is a young man who suffers from a condition called complete total social ineptitude, weakness and bullying. His actual nickname in school is "Weak-Knees Kenichi." The story begins with his desire to join the Karate Club at school, and his subsequent beat down from the club members. He's weak and scrawny and no one wants to take him seriously. After running into a nice young, if strange, girl, Miu, Kenichi finds himself directed to an obscure dojo with strange marital arts practioners - Ryozanpaku. The head of the dojo is Miu's grandfather, and it's revealed that some of her strangeness actually comes from being raised by him outside of a traditional family setting. Kenichi becomes a desciple of the entire dojo. He begins with a little bit from each master, as they try to train him both traditionally, and give him a hand with little moves along the way to protect him fromt he bullies gunning from him. After he manages to survive, and win, a battle against the evil freshman lead of the Karate Club, Kenichi finds himself the target of every bad-guy bully around. His success makes him a target both because of their feelings that he's just a lucky punk kid, and their desire to make a name for themselves after beating whoever is beating up the people that want to be better than.
It becomes a viscious cycle, and his training with the strangers at Ryozanpaku is the only thing that saves him in each episode. The series covers a variety of coming-of-age issues while adding comedy to every situation. A typical high school anime drama, with awkward students and strange antagonists.
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The best way I can describe this series is cheesy. Completely, totally cheesy...in a good way (5 points if you get the reference there). It was great. It's the kind of series I would sit down and watch with my counsins. I'm pretty sure they would get a kick out of it. It also totally made me want to join a dojo and learn mixed martial arts. I won't, but it did give me the urge.
There isn't a lot of deep thinking involved, but it's a decent coming-of-age series. It's probably a little more lighthearted than some of the high school dramas I've been watching. It's very exciting, though. I wasn't jumping out of my seat, but I was definitely cheering Kenichi on - even when he's dealing with his major crush on Miu. Let's hear it for the little guy! I'd much prefer him to end up with garden-girl, but what can you do?
In general, I like something a little more engaging, but there is absolutely nothing wrong here. It's not going to be in my Top 10, but I would recommend it to plenty of people - particularly a younger crowd. As long as you ignore some of the smack-him moments from Kenichi, it's totally appropriate. Miu is even a strong kick-ass young woman, so it's probably nice for girls too, if you're looking for female role models of a sort. So, I recommend it. Decently high marks from me!
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Hmm: My Little Monster
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