S_Soma

Before you read the balance of my review, which has some venomously negative comments to make, please note the 9/10 rating.

In general, I absolutely detest anime. From its el cheapo animation style done in threes and fours to its utterly moronic "plot lines" and imbecilic character designs to its at-best lame character development, I almost uniformly find little to like, let alone admire.

Occasionally, VERY occasionally, someone rises above anime's cheap foundations and produces something of better quality with some genuine artistic value, but it's very rare.

KOTARO LIVES ALONE does generally suffer from MOST of anime's par-for-the-course, customary failings.

Fortunately, even accidentally, the usual insane-plot-line-taken-direct-from-a-delirium-tremens really only happens around one element in the KOTARO LIVES ALONE story. A four-year-old child, with the informed knowledge and acquiescence of everyone in the show (just about), lives more or less entirely on his own in his own apartment and, for the most part, taking care of himself.

While getting this particular point past your willing suspension of disbelief filter is a big ask, it's just about the only real requirement to buy into the story. And, not so long ago, only a handful of decades, it was not at all unusual to see children starving to death in the streets of Japan, even in plain sight of daily commuters. Watch GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES if you don't believe me. So completely emancipated (or simply largely ignored) four year olds may be a stretch in today's world, but there's at least SOMETHING of a precedent for it.

The secret sauce for the entire series is the emotionally overwhelming noble nature of the titular character, Kotaro. Constructed from an all but magical mixture of naïveté, apparently brilliant intellect, and an iron-will determination to remain honorable in all things, Kotaro cuts a figure not entirely unlike Cyrano de Bergerac, just replace the big nose with the intrinsic weaknesses of a four-year-old for a tragic flaw, and those characters are a fairly close match. He is a character impossible not to love and who cannot help but inspire those around him to rise above their own feet of clay. If an orphan four-year-old can do it, then why not me?

Personally, I'd be less surprised to find a rare orchid sprouting from a solid block of concrete then such an endearing fairytale from the barren wasteland of anime, but there you have it.

I guess magic is where you find it.