It’s funny how much context matters.  Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid and Hi Score Girl share a studio, director, and much of their key staff – and of course both are almost entirely CGI.  They’re also both based on manga I’m very fond of (even more so HSG, only because I consider that a masterpiece).  Yet the CGI was so much less intrusive with Hi Score Girl than it is here.  While I’m openly not a huge fan of full-CG for anime generally, if there were ever a romcom that suited it, it’s HSG.  And if ever there was one that didn’t, it’s Shinigami Bocchan.  The entire look and feel of the series is all wrong for CGI – yet here we are.

This is something I would really like to move past, because this staff has already proved it can deliver an adaptation that’s tonally faithful to the source material.  And indeed, they’re doing so with here.  But I can’t help but agonize over what might have been, because this series would have been so gorgeous with a lovingly-rendered hand-drawn look.  Stylistically it’s a European fairy tale through and through, a softer and more playful gothic than Kuroshitsuji.  The CGI just undercuts that, and no amount of denial can get me past it.  The casting is sometimes off too (another major character introduction soon will reinforce that) but the what might have been aspect of the visual style is what really gets to me.

Happily we are at least seeing some of what makes the manga so charming come through in the anime, CGI or no.  Bocchan and Alice really do have a very winning chemistry, and it’s worth repeating – IMHO the real strength of this story isn’t even them, but the supporting cast.  The best of which, I might add, we’ve either not met or have yet to speak.  Bocchan cuts a rather tragic figure, excelling at that which he can do alone (playing the piano and billiards, for example) because that’s all he can do.  But that doesn’t make him any less aware of all that he’s missing out on.

Alice’s teasing (like Takagi-san’s) can get a bit one-note.  But as noted, she has a method to her madness.  Bocchan is deprived of human contact and warmth, so she overcompensates.  Yes she does manipulate him, but she manipulates him to poke his head out of his shell (stop it) a little, to indulge the side of him that longs to be part of the human quilt.  Which, given that he’s essentially a very kind and empathetic soul, is a very big part.  Yes he’s desperate to jump her bones, and indisputably vice-versa – these are late-teens in love, with all that implies.  But while Alice can’t give him (or herself) that, she can try and make up for it in other ways.

What I find quite poignant about these scenes at the village’s masquerade – and indeed much of the material in this series – is that they show us teasing glimpses of the person Bocchan might have become if his life hadn’t been stolen from him.  There’s something in him that longs to be vivacious and playful, and under Alice’s prodding it sometimes asserts itself for just a moment.  Indeed, having gotten a taste of public approval for his piano playing Bocchan seems to have an appetite for further human interaction – until he’s reminded that he’s the subject of ghost stories and rumors among the townsfolk, reminding him of his true status in the community.

The moon is a recurring them in this series – as indeed it often is in fairy tales.  The story of the ill-fated lovers, the moon, and the witch has echoes of Tanabata – but Bocchan notes that if anything it’s the exact opposite of his situation.  He longs to tell Alice “properly” how he feels, but of course that’s quite unnecessary – she knows full well.  Does it really matter how it’s said, as long as it’s said?  The pair are themselves separated for a bit after Bocchan gets swept away in a crowd, and Alice has a brief encounter with a woman in a skull mask (Hikasa Youko) who mistakes her for mother, Sharon.  Soon enough however they’re reunited, and share a moment together at the top of the village clock tower under that devil moon.

Whether it be in Alice’s little hut or on a boat on a lake under the meteors, the chemistry between these two is pretty obvious.  To be so close to that which you most desire, but be unable to grasp it – is that better or worse than the lovers forever separated in the town’s folk tale?  To an extent I think Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid is an exploration of that question – though just how deeply it’s able to explore in the anime is another of those things that concerns me.  For now, as ever, best just to enjoy the ride.