Winter kickoff day features another romcom, The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague.  This time the venue is the workplace, which gives a little head start to any anime intending to do something somewhat original.  Not that workplace romcoms are unicorns, but they (and middle school ones too) are a lot rarer than high school ones.  Manga is already much more balanced on that score, and it would be nice if anime caught up eventually.

I’m always keen to give any series about adult characters in realistic settings a chance, though you have to take “realistic” loosely in this instance.  We have a young woman named Fuyutsuki (the kanji reads as “Winter Months”) starting her first day as a salarywoman.  On the way she meets a young man named Himuro (the kanji reads as “Ice Room”) with his feet frozen in a block of ice.  Being a helpful soul she offers to pour her hot tea on him, though that does no good.  Eventually she offers to let him drink it and engages in warm conversation, and soon Himuro is free and both of them are on their way.

Naturally it turns out that they’re both starting work at the same company (the timing at least is no coincidence – Japanese businesses prefer to onboard new employees all at once, like the beginning of a school term).  It soon comes out that Himuro-kun is descended from yuki onna, and whenever he gets worked up about anything he creates a cold front in the immediate area.  Among the things that get him worked up are flowers and cats, which sadly means he can be around neither.  Among the co-workers is a woman who’s a kitsune  (her name reads as “Fox Forest”), and the boss is – apparently – Buddha.  Good thing Fuyutsuki is a stoic.

The way all this absurdity is treated in matter-of-fact fashion reminds me of Tenchi Souzou Design-bu.  And in fact Koori Zokusei reminds me a lot of that series generally.  There was a lot less direct romantic entanglement with Heaven’s Design Team, but the overall tone of the two series is quite similar.  There are lots of nice little details with Himuro’s quirk, like the kawaii little snowmen that pop out of him when he’s excited and the fact that he forms a snow hut around himself when he’s depressed.  As for Fuyutsuki she’s just a generally very kind and thoughtful person, though her actions soon have Himuro hopelessly in love with her (which means hair-trigger blizzards are a perpetual hazard).

Another element I liked here was the stuff with Fuyutsuki and her cat Nyamero (another pun, yamero being a firm way of saying “Stop!”).  Like how she bought him a new house (which looks like an old-school TV) and he promptly decides to go inside the bag it came in.  Later he sits on top of the house, but it turns out he’ll only sit inside it when she’s not home to see it.  Anyone with a cat history will know how true that rings.  The little details like that really click here – I like the naming puns too – and the characters are quite likeable so far.  Koori Zokusei Danshi to Cool na Douryou Joshi has a lot of potential to be that series for winter – followers of the site know exactly what I mean.