The Fall 2024 Anime Preview Guide

Haigakura

On a journey to find ourselves. With captured family and a missing past, Ichiyo, a kashi, battles alongside Tenko to regain what's lost. The Immortal realm. Immortals and humans dwell in a world on the verge of collapse. Ichiyo and Tenko search for the key to salvation, the 'Four Perils' who hold this land together.

Haigakura is based on the manga series by Shinobu Takayama. The anime series is streaming on Amazon Prime and YouTube on Mondays.

This is one of those stories with a surfeit of proper nouns. Not only do all the characters have names (as they ought), but a lot of specialized terminology needs explaining. In Haigakura's defense, it does do this, both at the very start of the episode and later, where a preview would be. It's also not too difficult to figure things out from the context, but it's also a fair amount to keep track of, especially given how many named characters show up. This is where it's worth mentioning that on neither stream – Amazon Prime nor YouTube – is the on-screen text translated when characters are introduced. This means that the two who come in at the very end, one of whom looks like he got lost on his way to a Korean period drama, have had their names revealed…but not to us. “Annoying” would be a kind way to put it. (The English subs also vanished for me entirely at around the 19-minute mark on Prime.)

The plot revolves around special god-wrangling performers called Kashikan, who form contracts with gods that are recorded in their sai, special bead necklaces that they're supposed to keep on them at all times, or so the events imply. Ichiyo is purportedly the worst Kashikan ever, although he does have two gods under contract and seems to be getting work regularly. The reveal of why he's so bad is the most entertaining part of the episode: he's an epically lousy singer, as tone-deaf as they come. This means that rather than gently wooing the gods, he's using his song as a cudgel, smashing them over the head with his horrendous voice. Between that and the sharp hissing noise goddess Kaka makes in her child form, this isn't without its moments of redeeming humor.

It also has some decent imagery, particularly at the end, when Ichiyo converses with the two shouldn't-be-nameless characters. It's very classical, giving the impression that I've read or seen this before under a different name. This does come down to simple tropes being reused, but that feeling of familiarity does work in Haigakura's favor, I think, if only because I kept trying to figure out if maybe I read the manga in French or Italian. (As of this writing, it is not available in English.)

With all of that said, this isn't a great introduction to the story. It's meant to guide us into the world and its associated concepts, but it might have been better to start with the main plot: Ichiyo going to Japan to find four specific gods. It's mentioned that he was there before and is now headed back, and that sounds more interesting than what we get here, which is Ichiyo demonstrating his powers when a corrupt Kashikan shows up. This probably deserves a second episode, but I'm not sure I'm willing to give it that – this is a bit of a mess, and the screechy qualities of some of the voices sent me running for the volume control.