Well, here’s a little show you probably won’t find unless you’re looking for it. Kanokon is a very ecchi romance featuring, at its core, first-year high school student (who looks like he’s ten. Awkward.) Kota, who is pursued by his beautiful upperclasswoman Chizuru… who is actually a kitsune. The perils of interspecies dating and the hesitance of a lead drawn and written younger than he canonically is are made all the more complicated by the arrival of other more or less horny Yokai into the situation.
Maybe you got here looking for the “Also ran” to Rosario + Vampire or Actually, I Am. Maybe you were seeking Omamori Himari without that bothersome Urban Fantasy Action plot. Me? I’m a reviewer, I have to go dredging through lesser known titles of ill repute now and again. Well, let’s not waste any more time and dig into this one.
The first episode goes… about how the pitch goes. Kota and Chizuru meet when he transfers into school (during a sunshower, of course) and some time later she’s already going 100% for the comedy sexual harassment, much the the annoyance of the class rep, because there always has to be a class rep character with a stick firmly lodged up her behind in these. Chizuru manages to hand-deliver her love letter, calling Kota to a disused room after school, and when she surprises him with a kiss, her true foxy nature comes out. Kota finds her beautiful still, though, so she’s all for getting more on with it.
This situation is interrupted by another fox and so, to show off just how inseparable they are, Chizuru goes ahead and possesses Kota (possible because his heart was open to her) and demonstrates some very impressive love-powered foxfire.
With that, it seems like the two are bound to be an item, as intimidated by that prospect as Kota may be, and indeed Chizuru’s interest in pervy PDA only seems to grow. Escaping some of that (not that part of him doesn’t want to accept. It helps make the show less painful that he’s clearly most bothered by the public part) causes Kota to have a run-in with Nozomu, a strange meat-happy girl he recognizes as somehow like Chizuru. He offers to pay for her meal, which she’s being harassed over by an irate vendor, and while his actions get through to her what payment is more than him actually having to do anything, it’s the thought that counts since she says she’ll remember him and his scent.
Later, when Chizuru puts up a spiritual barrier so she can have private time with Kota in the middle of a public street, Nozomu manages to walk right through anyway, dispelling it to massive embarrassment. While Kota (and to a lesser extent Chizuru) is being given a hard time about this in school, Nozomu makes a tackle-hug appearance, throwing her hat into the ring more clearly.
We get some of the typical tired romantic comedy beats, like the duel of the home-made lunches. Except this time, all the lunches are horrible because Chizuru is an awful cook and Nozomu is just plain weird. We also continue to get ecchi moment after ecchi moment, and pushing the upper limit of ecchi at that.
At least there are some antics to fill out the show and make it more than just a procession of sandwiches and marshmallow hells. Like Chizuru trying on a cursed bunny girl outfit from which she’s ultimately saved via possessing Kota (which removes her body from existence temporarily). Or Kota being targeted by Nozomu’s brother, who creepily wants Chizuru to be his girl. You know, the sort of single episode annoyances you’d expect. We also get lower-key episodes like New Years (or the lunch duel) that maintain lower drama.
All the while, the show very much relies on the dead tired ecchi beats where the girl more or less throws herself at the guy and the guy, despite being interested, does everything in his power to ensure that we don’t move any closer to X-rated material.
Now, there’s a fairly tired stereotype that men are always ready to go, and that’s pretty outright wrong. Guys can be hesitant, even fearful, especially when we’re talking about a teen who looks to be about as developed as a grade schooler here. But there’s hesitance, then there’s resisting temptation, then there’s the level we’re on here of avoiding the most forceful and direct of signals even when the time and place are not (as they too often are with Chizuru) wildly inappropriate. I’m not asking for Kota to dive in like Arata, but this is an all too common genre problem where the romantic chemistry ends up feeling off because of just how far the fanservice is willing to go while still needing the guy to be against it.
This problem is much wider than Kanokon but is especially on display here, once it starts going past the “not in public!” scenarios. I think it hits worse because this isn’t really a harem, it’s a basic love triangle… with a clear favorite. Chizuru and Nozomu are both crazy for Kota for reason not announced, Kota seems to like and synch with Chizuru, and Nozomu is kind of a third wheel. That’s the basic dynamic here, it’s not like we’re exploring the psyche and turmoil of new girl after new girl like in a Harem production’s setup phase, which naturally draws things out. We just have the joke be “Chizuru is overbearing” time and again because that’s the one the writers “know” works.
It’s kind of a pity here because when, and this is very rarely, the two of them are allowed a moment that’s earnest, the chemistry is actually kind of nice, but its always interrupted either by needing to do the one joke again or needing Nozomu to block their ship from sailing.
Believe it or not the show does do some more plot work later on, with a servant of Chizuru’s mother testing her and Kota’s bond in one episode (by trapping them in a snowstorm since the servant is a Yuki-Onna), ending with an invitation to the family home (a hot springs inn) where mom has more fun with the scenario dosing Kota with a love potion that sends him head-over-heels for Nozomu for a bit (He snaps out before going too far with her, which is passing marks).
After mom’s arc, we have another multi-episode thread where a strange black-haired little girl who refers to Kota as Big Brother shows up (not to him) and recruits a pair of dirt poor ninja classmates of Kota’s to seal Chizuru. Their attempt reduces her power and bust alike to near nil (she’s more worried about the latter), which after an episode and a half in vain of the ninja twins trying to finish the job with Wile E. Coyote antics (ending when Chizuru treats them to dinner, convincing them she’s not a bad Yokai) and the little girl having summoned nasties and her attendant launch an all-out attack on the school (which ends when Kota declares his love for Chizuru, merges to a five-tailed form, and beats up everuthing before having amnesia for the event).
After that, we get a much lower key pair of episodes (Beach and finale. No transforming, no enemies, just romantic drama) that serve to wrap up the plot arcs, where in Kota struggles to actually tell Chizuru he loves her. Once he does, that’s that. The show is over, and can be forgotten just as quickly.
Kanokon is… not a good show. Not in the least. It’s awkward ecchi with extra uncomfortable “he looks like a little tiny kid” salt. As a show that exists for no reason other than fanservice goes it’s far from the worst: a couple jokes land, there are a few good characters like Chizuru’s often-suffering brother that help give it more dimensionality, and the main romance is… flat and forced but less so than a lot of its nearest competitors. But on the whole, it’s clear that this is slop pulled into a vague shape with which you’re supposed to admire Chizuru’s assets for about half an hour at a time. But the limited effort to be found is more than I’ve been able to say for others.
And for that being it, and all there is to it, I’ll give Kanokon a D. It’s nothing to recommend and nothing to watch, but in the pantheon of bad shows it doesn’t even really rate. It had no ambition, and it lived that lack of anything to the fullest.