OP: “My Hero” by MAN WITH A MISSION

This would be about the time I scream “NoitaminA is back, Baby!!!” – if I were going to do that.  But I’m not.  Not yet, anyway – the new entry Inuyashiki is off to quite a promising start, actually, but it’s way too early to celebrate.  That said, it does seem at least that NoitaminA is returning to thematic and demographic territory more suited to it rather than meekly parrot whatever trend is dominating the rest of the anime schedule.  Even if Inuyashiki turns out to be a disappointment, that would count as a baby step forward.

There was certainly enough in the pedigree to make Inuyashiki an interesting Fall entry – it’s a seinen for starters, and comes from MAPPA (still too busy for my preference).  Director Satou Keiichi (Shingeki no Bahamut) is a solid veteran, and has experience in the oeuvre of mangaka Oku Hiroya, having worked on Gantz adaptations in the past.  We also have music from the excellent Ike Yoshihiro and a very solid writer, Seko Hiroshi (Mob Psycho 100, Ajin) in charge of the scripts.  Yeah, Inuyashiki is a heavily CG-driven show, but that’s not a deal-breaker in this day and age (out of necessity if nothing else).  Heck, we even have an OP sequence apparently directed by Tachikawa Yuzuru.

Given all that, I’m not sure why my expectations were so modest, but the first episode definitely exceeded them.  It was just short of great, but really, really good – measured and atmospheric and quite distinctive.  My concern here, though, is that it was basically a prologue – the real story only starts in the latter half of the episode.  And I worry that like KADO, the “mundane” prologue could end up being more interesting that the main sci-fi driven plot to follow.  The A-part of this ep was certainly stronger than the B-part (though that was still quite good).

That A-part chronicles the travails of Inuyashiki Ichirou (Kohinata Fumiyo), a 58 year-old family man who looks much older.  Inuyashiki-san lives a cold and loveless life, sleeping in his own room and generally ignored by his wife and two kids, high-schooler daughter Mari (Uesaka Sumire) and middle-school son Takeshi (Fukuzaki Nayuta).  It’s no wonder that Ichirou immediately takes to the stray dog he finds by the river (where all anime strays are left), so desperate for affection is he. Lonely, tired and disrespected, the coup de grace comes when Ichirou’s doctor casually tells him that he has stomach cancer and only three months to live.

This entire section is extremely well-done – the moment when Ichirou wonders whether his own family would even cry for him is truly heartbreaking.  All of this is helped greatly by the fact that most of the cast are not anime actors, but first-timers (Fukuzaki-kun does have anime connections, having played the young Kenshin Himura and Ciel Phantomhive in their live-action versions.  And interestingly, he’s also to play Takeshi in Inuyashiki’s 2018 live-action film – I can’t think of the last time the same actor played a character both in anime and live-action).  It would probably be depressing as hell, but a series about this old man’s final days would be a fascinating watch.

That’s not what Inuyashiki is, though – and we’ll see whether the shift from gritty realism to sci-fi pays off.  As Inuyashiki-san weeps in the park (at least he can shed tears for himself), he sees a young man mysteriously appear next to him – and then a blinding flash of light.  As best I can tell an alien spacecraft has crash-landed and killed both of them, and to cover their tracks they rebuild Ichirou (and presumably the young man) into terminator-style android versions of themselves.  And this proves to be a considerable surprise for Ichirou as he slowly discovers his new powers – and even begins to use them for good, saving a homeless man from a gang of murderous teens (a lot more common in anime than RL Japan) intent on killing him with fireworks and baseball bats.

Ummm kay…  That isn’t as strange as it sounds- no, I take that back, it really is as strange as it sounds.  But it kind of works – not as well as the A-part, but pretty well.  I don’t know whether the aliens themselves are going to be a part of future episodes, but their handiwork certainly is – and I’m sufficiently curious to see how Inuyashiki deals with his new powers (and just who the other guy is) to keep me hooked in for now at least.  As for the CGI, it’s actually only prevalent at certain high-action moments – the characters are thankfully most often rendered in 2-D animation – so in the end it’s not a major distraction.  Make no mistake, this was an excellent premiere, but Inuyashiki definitely comes with a higher than usual uncertainty factor.

ED: “Ai wo Oshiete Kureta Kimi e (愛を教えてくれた君へ)” by Qaijff (クアイフ)