Kamichu!

Kamichu! (かみちゅ！), short for Kamisama de Chūgakusei (かみさまでちゅうがくせい), is a Japanese anime television series. Influenced by Shinto, it follows the adventures of teenage goddess Yurie Hitotsubashi and her friends. The series was created by Besame Mucho (ベサメムーチョ), which is the joint pen name of producer Tomonori Ochikoshi, director Koji Masunari, and writer Hideyuki Kurata. It was broadcast by the anime television network Animax on its respective networks worldwide, including Japan, East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, where it received its first English-language broadcast. Kamichu! was adapted as a manga serialized in the shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh and collected into two tankōbon volumes.

In July 2008, Geneon Entertainment and Funimation announced an agreement to distribute select titles in North America. Although Geneon still retained the license, Funimation would assume exclusive rights to the manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution of select titles. Kamichu! was one of several titles involved in the deal, but in August 2011, the rights to the series had expired.

Story

Kamichu! is set in spring 1983 until 1984,[2] in the city of Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, on the shores of Japan's Inland Sea. Many of the temples and landmarks shown in the anime are real locations in the city.

Yurie Hitotsubashi is a shy ordinary middle school girl who suddenly discovers that she has become a, a goddess in the Shinto sense, overnight. She has no idea what sort of goddess she is or what her powers are. Her friends give her the nickname Kamichu, a portmanteau of kami (神) and chūgakusei (中学生). Yurie meets many other divinities and spirits, while learning the ways of the gods become a great goddess herself. During the course of the series, she learns about being a better goddess as a person.

Characters

• Yurie Hitotsubashi (一橋 ゆりえ)
• Yurie is the protagonist of the series. In the first episode, she tells her best friend Mitsue that overnight she has become a goddess; how or why this became so is never further explained. She is remarkably naïve and simple-minded, but always has the best intentions. Yurie has a crush on Kenji Ninomiya for a long time and gets embarrassed around him. Whenever she exercises her divine powers, her hair grows long and she often falls asleep afterwards due to the taxing effort involved.
• Matsuri Saegusa (三枝 祀)
• Matsuri is the person in charge of the Raifuku Shrine in Onomichi. She runs the shrine with her sister, Miko, and their widowed father, the chief priest. Matsuri is always thinking of schemes to earn money for the shrine or attract more visitors to it, usually through exploiting Yurie's newfound divinity.
• Mitsue Shijo (四条 光恵)
• Mitsue is Yurie's down-to-earth best friend. She serves as the "straight man" for her friends, but wishes that her life were more exciting. Yurie often goes to her for advice, which is simple common sense that is always right. She is usually possessed by Yashima when he needs to communicate with people or when he wants to play the guitar.
• Miko Saegusa (三枝 みこ)
• Miko is Matsuri's shy younger sister. She does the cooking in the house, and is very polite and respectful to everyone. She helps out in the shrine and has the ability to see spirits. She has a crush on the shrine's god, Yashima, whom she often speaks with. Her name, Miko, is also the term for a Shinto shrine attendant.
• Kenji Ninomiya (二宮 健児)
• Kenji is president and only member of his school's calligraphy club. He is quiet, aloof, and rather slow on the uptake. Kenji loves his brushes and often does calligraphy for the Raifuku shrine. He only does calligraphy when he is "inspired", but it takes him a while to realize that most of his sources of inspiration revolve around Yurie, who has an intense crush on him. At the end of the anime, Kenji becomes Yurie's boyfriend.
• Yashima (八島様)
• Yashima is the local kami of the Raifuku shrine. He wishes to be a rock star, so he often possesses Mitsue (who is totally against this) to fulfill his dream. Yashima is also often seen with an Akita Inu that talks. He seems to be close friends with Miko Saegusa, but it is implied that he is more interested in her sister, Matsuri.
• Shōkichi Hitotsubashi (一橋 章吉)
• Shōkichi is Yurie's younger brother who likes Miko and attends the same school as his older sister, only one grade below. He often acts more mature than his sister and often teases her, but they love each other. Shōkichi has a crush on Miko and blushes whenever he is around her.
• Kiyomi Noto (ノート 清美)
• Kiyomi is a girl younger than Yurie, Matsuri, and Mitsue, who is also in love with Kenji.
• Ukaru Nishimura (西村 ウカル)
• Ukaru is a male student at Yurie's school who was competing for student council.
• Bin-chan (貧乏神(貧ちゃん))
• Bin-chan is a poverty god Yurie takes in after he saves Tama's life. He shares Tama's body.
• Tama Hitotsubashi (一橋 タマ)
• Tama is Yurie's pet cat. After Tama began to share her body with Bin-chan, she exhibits a number of human traits which make Shoukichi suspicious.
• Akane Hitotsubashi (一橋 あかね) and Kenkichi Hitotsubashi (一橋 憲吉)
• Akane
• Kenkichi
• Yurie and Shōkichi's parents.
• Ino, Shika, Chō
• Ino
• Shika
• Chō
• The three tiny spirits that the God Association sends to Yurie as her assistants. Their names are puns, as they were given by Yurie for unrelated reasons but correspond to the animals that they resemble. Chō is a butterfly, Ino is a boar, and Shika is a deer. "Ino-Shika-Chou" is also a winning hand in the card game Hanafuda.

Media

Reception

The anime received an Excellence Prize at the 2005 Japan Media Arts Festival.[8]

See also

• Arahitogami: More information on human being as a God(dess) in Shinto religion.

External links

• Official Kamichu! website by Sony Music
• Interview with Hideyuki Kurata and Koji Masunari - about the anime Kamichu!