I’ll come out and say this at the start: Kyousougiga might be the strangest anime I’ve seen to date. It’s not that any particular element is too far beyond bizarre (though many of them are pretty out there), but it is odd in just about every way. Because of that, I’m not exactly going to be able to look at it with the same linear plot recap I normally do, and will instead have to dig in carefully. It’s a short show, and it is a good show (I think) so if you want to experience the ride for yourself, now’s your last warning that you’re in a spoiler review.
So, what’s so weird about Kyousougiga? In a way, everything. It’s a tale told backwards, forwards, and in bits and pieces without much in the way of linear progress. There is some, but it’s heavily interwoven with a variety of flashbacks that do weave the tapestry of the story but at the same time don’t really go the same way as a normal tale. Further, there are points where it seems like beats are skipped, or aren’t presented in the same way, giving an overall sense of an erratic continuity.
The setting is odd and esoteric, taking place mostly in a world that’s very unlike our own, which exists in a broader multiverse that’s very unlike our own, in both cases also fairly unlike familiar fictional contrivances. Some things are explained in detail, but others are taken for granted or left as being just what they are because they’d be familiar to all the characters involved. I have some appreciation for the choice to eschew unfit exposition, but given the presence of a narrator and the choice to have flashbacks here there and everywhere I’m left wondering if we couldn’t have been given a better picture of this universe.
And, going beyond most other shows that have bizarre structures or settings like Mekakucity Actors or Serial Experiments Lain, the characters are also difficult to read. There are several classes of characters. Many of the characters also have notable multiple forms, sometimes with limited explanations that this is the same entity for better or worse. Several also have multiple names they go by at different times and under different conditions. This wouldn’t be so twisted, but there are also characters that have the same forms as other characters and characters who share their names with other characters. This usually plays alright in the show, and it is at least meaningful and not arbitrary, but it makes the characters somewhat difficult to talk about in text. For this reason, I’ll be leading off with a listing of the characters, including what I’ll be calling them to keep their references distinct and consistent throughout the review.
The first character we’re introduced to is the priest, a mysterious man who lives on the outskirts of Kyoto and possesses the power to bring his drawings to life. This is, however, the most tangled character: depending on the period the show is depicting and his form, he goes by Myoue or Inari, and it can even be initially non-obvious that Monk Myoue and Inari are the same character (certainly, there’s a degree to which the characters don’t initially know). Considering he de-ages from being an adult as Myoue in the past to having a child-like body as Inari in the present, and displays different powers than his former ability to bring drawings to life as Inari, it’s easy to see members of the audience not connecting the two even longer than you’re probably supposed to not connect them for. I’ll be referring to this character as Inari throughout because we have another Myoue to worry about.
Next to mention is Koto. Koto is a black rabbit that Inari drew into being in his monk phase. She ended up falling in love with her creator. Her fervent desire attracted the attention of a Bodhisattva, who lent her body (with the appearance of a lovely silver-haired young woman) to Koto on the condition that Koto would return her form once she truly won Inari’s love. Inari accepted her fairly quickly, but his weird ways didn’t reach the point where Koto was supposed to give the body back for at least a fairly long time. During this phase they had three children… or at least that’s what we’re told at first. It’s more accurate to say they adopted three children, two of which were drawn into being, and ended up having a fourth. This Koto – who I’ll refer to as Mom Koto – isn’t in much of the ‘present’ story, but she is rather pivotal for all the characters involved.
Up next, Koto. Again. A different Koto this time, Inari and Mom Koto’s true-born daughter and one of our two supposed main characters. This Koto (Kid Koto, as I’ll refer to her if there’s ambiguity, Koto in general) is a middle-school-aged girl who wields phenomenal cosmic power in the form of a bizarre giant hammer. She was raised by Inari (in his Inari state) as a member of a trans-dimensional organization known as The Shrine, and never knew her mother. She’s also not aware of her three ‘older siblings’ in any sense, even after she runs into them in her universe-crossing search for the black rabbit that is her mother and their mother figure.
Kid Koto has two familiars, A and Un. Sometimes they take human forms and can almost be regarded as younger siblings for her, while at other times they take the form of weird spark gremlins that hover around her. They’re not particularly important characters, but if you end up watching this show it’s worth noting that the little brothers and the familiar spirits are, in fact, the same characters.
From there, we might as well talk about the other Myoue. This Myoue is the natural human adopted son of Inari and Mom Koto, originally known as Yakushimaru. Inari ended up foisting a lot off onto this kid, including his name as Myoue, the position of monk, and a string of magical prayer beads, before disappearing from the lives of Myoue and his drawn siblings, along with Mom Koto. He possibly foisted more off on the kid, if the great (but not perfect) resemblance between this Myoue as an adult and Inari-as-Myoue is anything to go by. Myoue kind of wants nothing to do with his Myoue-ness – he’d committed suicide as Yakushimaru before Inari resurrected him and took him in, and can’t suffer harm or death to escape his current existence, meaning he sort of goes onward, hoping to some day find an escape but carrying on for now. Myoue serves as our central character for much of the show, alongside Kid Koto.
Myoue’s drawn siblings are Kurama and Yase. Kurama looks and acts mostly human despite his origin, and in his adult form for the ‘present’ of the story acts as a wise man and schemer. Because Myoue is kind of depressive and does the bare minimum, Kurama is the de-facto leader of the setting for most of the ‘present’. Yase was drawn as a demon, and because of that has some supernatural powers as well as a more distinctly inhuman appearance, allowing her to change from a tea-party-happy socialite to a raging beast. She has an exceptionally strong bond both to her mother (Mom Koto) and her memories. These two characters get a good deal of focus, but require less explanation than others.
Any more characters, mostly incidentals, I’ll cover when they come up properly.
So, let’s talk more about the story. For the sake of sanity, I’ll try to tell it mostly straight through. The tale begins with the background of Inari. After Mom Koto incarnates as a human-like being rather than a rabbit and they adopt Myoue, Kurama, and Yase, Inari notes that his family is facing some unwanted attention from nearby Kyoto. Because of that, he draws another world into being, the Mirror City that’s based on period Kyoto, but also… very much different. The Mirror City, as we spend many episodes exploring, has a lot of its own rules, such as damage and harm being undone, strange rituals to deal with unwanted things, glitchy NPCs that look like wildly colored and vaguely human shaped cutouts as well as more vibrant ‘people’… and so on and so forth. Inari takes his family and retreats into the Mirror City, sealing the path behind them. Shortly after, though, he passes his name and title to Myoue and leaves with Mom Koto, presumably to deal with that whole “promised to give that body back” thing.
It’s wasn’t entirely clear to me how Inari and Mom Koto split, but it ends up with Mom Koto in a distant, hidden sort of place and Inari, now truly Inari, inserting himself into The Shrine and raising Kid Koto as his apprentice more than his daughter. Eventually, Kid Koto gets the bright idea to set off on her own in search of Mom Koto and uses her crazy hammer to forcibly break into the Mirror City, unaware of its significance but not able to quickly leave either. There, she ends up rooming with Myoue (who treats hyperactive Kid Koto like an annoying little sister even before everyone works out that’s exactly what she is) and slowly getting to know the Mirror City and its inhabitants.
This phase does contain a lot of notes and grace notes that are interesting in their own right, as various characters are explored in past and present, but few of them have much payoff because Kurama and Yase don’t really contribute to the last act. They don’t even get a good confrontation with Inari; that’s all handed to Kid Koto and Myoue. So while it’s fun to watch Kurama and his band of mad scientists, or Yase and her monster tea party crew, forgive me if their exploits don’t make the headline for a spoiler review. Or, at least, not all of them.
Actually, I find one of the grace not elements fairly interesting. We see Myoue, when he was a child, forming a strong bond with a little girl who lives at a shrine in the Mirror City. He even confesses to her and asks her to be his wife. In the present, Myoue has a girlfriend, but it’s not the same little shrine girl. Shrine girl is still a little girl, having not aged or changed since Myoue was a kid because she’s just one of the more detailed NPCs of the Mirror City – not a faceless blob, but not properly subject to time. Myoue still talks to her a couple times, and they seem to be friends despite the distance between them. This ends up being a stark contrast to Myoue’s relationship with his girlfriend; she’s clearly interested in him (and is even the voice that asks Kid Koto to save him when he’s spiraling into self-destruction), but despite often being over at her place and clearly having something of an adult relationship, Myoue comes off as rather cold to her.
On the subject of elements that get more screen time, there’s cleaning time, when trash and other unwanted things that otherwise can’t be lost or destroyed in the Mirror City are removed via train to the unknown. Rivers of junk float lazily through the sky towards the station as everyone cleans house, but Yase seems to hate this time. Because, as we see, she keeps her memories in the form of things, a vast collection of everything that could remind her of better times. When a troublemaker sends her favorite teacup (a reminder of Mom Koto) along we spend most of an episode trying to get it back, both to quell Yase’s rage and because we (unlike Kurama in particular) sympathize with the emotions around her loss. It’s surprisingly well done.
Eventually, though, we move on to the next stage. Once Kid Koto has learned about a good deal of the Mirror City and its inhabitants, Kurama and his mad science team use her and her hammer to crack open the barrier of the Mirror City and reach for another dimension where, they hope, Mom Koto will be waiting. She is, but this action also does massive damage to the metaphysics of the Mirror City and attracts the attention of the Shrine, resulting in the arrival of both Inari and the Shrine’s chief priest, with entourage.
The climax that follows is… more emotionally satisfying than it is logically coherent. A lot happens, and it’s hard to say what a lot of it is. The important highlights are that everyone gets to meet Mom Koto again (or for the first time in the case of Kid Koto), but she’s fading out of reality because, again, borrowed body and it can’t hold up outside of the sealed place where she’d been hiding. The Shrine, meanwhile, wants to destroy the Mirror City because it’s not a ‘proper’ part of creation that fits in their design of worlds. Inari is kind of doing his own thing. He’s happy to see Mom Koto, I think, but he ends up fighting with both the Head Priest on one side and Kid Koto and Myoue on the other. Myoue finally stands up for himself believing in something, and they have themselves a jolly struggle. God (in the form of a trio of small animals we’d glimpsed throughout the show to an extent) appears and it’s revealed that Inari is his son, and sort of the prodigal son and wayward heir to all creation.
This was actually something I’d consider a good turn. In a show full of weird people doing weird things for sometimes odd motives, Inari had always come off as, to an extent, the least human of the lot, with priorities and morals badly skew from anything mortal. So getting that he’s a literal demigod goes a long way to making his character ‘read’ a little better.
Ultimately, Kid Koto and Myoue are able to knock some sense into Inari and make him take his responsibilities seriously. Creation is opened up, the Shrine has new duties to consider, and the family can all sort of work out their problems.
All in all, Kyousougiga is very much like a fairy tale. It’s grand and visually impressive more than consistent, and it plays very deeply on emotions rather than looking for the ‘meat’ of the plot. All in all, I feel it deserves a B+. This is a show that’s absolutely worth watching, that can’t be done justice by mere description. It needs to be seen and experienced to be believed because it’s very much about the journey and not the destination. If you’re in the mood for some weirdness, go ahead and check it out.