Kobato.

Some­where around about epis­ode 12 it hit me. No, not that the show had sud­denly become watch­able, that wasn’t to hap­pen for sev­eral more epis­odes. No, what hit me was a per­fect way to express what it was I didn’t like about this show. I had some vague review thoughts in my head (sub­con­sciously review­ing the show as you watch it; the curse of being a critic) but most of them revolved around bitch­ing about how stu­pid Kobato her­self was and how the show relied on cute­ness as its main appeal, some­thing I’ve just never really liked. But then it hit me. I read on ... a blog somewhere that the way the person got through a series they didn’t like was because they spent their time also play­ing Poke­mon. So I finally got around to play­ing Poke­mon Plat­inum after the first few episodes of Kobato (why yes, I am a game behind every­one else) because I real­ised I would prob­ably smash my laptop if I had to sit through another ‘Kobato Gan­bar­rebleargh~’ without some­thing else to occupy my mind. Now nor­mally this shouldn’t work unless I was watch­ing the dub. Mul­ti­task­ing while watch­ing subs is next to impossible. How­ever it did work because I actu­ally under­stood pretty much everything that was being said.

Let me explain. I have never once made an attempt at learn­ing Japan­ese. I know about as much as any wee­aboo who watches subbed anime would know. Watch­ing Kobato wasn’t a sud­den grand real­isa­tion that I was now flu­ent in Japan­ese. It was the sim­pli­city of the lan­guage the char­ac­ters used. They all had just a few stock lines they would throw out in most situ­ations which meant that after watch­ing a few epis­odes pay­ing atten­tion to the subs you knew pretty much everything that they could say. This effects the anime in far more ways than you might real­ise. Of course you get the pain­fully dull and repet­it­ive dia­logue. Of course there’s the way every scene and every epis­ode feels the exact bloody same with no inspir­a­tion, ingenu­ity or ima­gin­a­tion, bar Kobato’s ward­robe. But along­side that you also have the actual ten­sion in the series solved using the same unin­spired meth­ods in every epis­ode. Kobato throws out a few stock phrases, Ioryogi mut­ters some­thing in the back­ground and all is right with the world once again. It lim­its the dir­ec­tion any epis­ode can take.

But yes, it does get bet­ter. It may take until around epis­ode 17 before I actu­ally went through an epis­ode without hav­ing beaten 3–4 poke­mon train­ers while it was play­ing, but it cer­tainly did improve. Vastly improved. By epis­ode 20 I had shut that Game Boy for good and was actu­ally watch­ing this show for real. The show took a much more dra­matic and mel­an­cholic tone that suited the style of storytelling far more. After watch­ing the pre­vi­ous 16 epis­odes of failed com­edy (bar Ioryogi dodging cork bul­lets at the fest­ival. That was quite funny) and bland stor­ies that were sup­posed to be heart­warm­ing, the effect this change to a plot-driven story had on the over­all qual­ity of the show was phe­nom­enal.

Let me talk about the MAL stats for a second on this series. There’s a very high per­cent­age drop rate to com­pleted rate, around 20% of the people who watched it, dropped it. And yet the anime is rated 8.07 at the time of writing, a very respect­able score indeed. MAL doesn’t count the scores once you’ve seen bey­ond a cer­tain num­ber of epis­odes so those who actu­ally sat through the entire thing were clearly rewar­ded for their efforts. It also shows the usual reac­tion of people to rate some­thing highly because the later epis­odes were bet­ter, much like After Story. It’s some­thing that bugs me a lot because I hate hav­ing to sit through sev­eral poor epis­odes just because ‘it gets bet­ter I swear!’. I don’t doubt it does. It’s just those earlier epis­odes are a right pain to sit through. Because Kobato is, for the most part, a poor anime. It just hap­pens to end on a very high note. Plus you can’t skip those earlier epis­odes the same way you the­or­et­ic­ally can for After Story. Without those earlier epis­odes the end­ing ones don’t work.

It did turn me into a romantic sap though. Good old Clamp did it again. They made me believe that, through any­thing, love will pre­vail. No mat­ter what hap­pens to you, what you go through, what form you’re in, love will get through all that. It did the very same thing Chob­its did. It made me believe in the Power of Love. I came into this anime look­ing for some­thing to rep­lic­ate the feel­ing Chob­its gave me and, in the end, I guess it did exactly that.

Kobato is a girl of currently unknown origins whose job is to "heal" the hearts of the world around her. Every time she heals a heart, a candy-like gem called Confetto will appear in a glass bottle in which she carries around. When this glass bottle finally fills up, she will get her wish granted. Thus, the story of Kobato follows her attempts to find people to heal.

Story
Oh boy... Where do I even begin. The whole storyline has been put out so slowly I've lost interest. Even as a major fan of slice of life and non-related episodic anime (in which my favourites include Hidamari ... Sketch and Aria, as well as being a fan of Sketchbook and GA), this doesn't draw me in in any way possible.

EDIT: 6 episodes after I originally wrote this, I'd say it jsut got worse. they made a highly pointless time skip, in which we end upa few months later, with NO advancement to the storyline, and she just goes on continuing to collect Confetto.

Art
For some plus points, I've always been a fan of the animation Madhouse does, and this is no exception.

Music
Music is decent, except when Kobato sings. It's too darn fake-sounding.

Character
Boy oh boy number 2...

The anime appears to have 3 main characters. Starting with Fujimoto, the guy appears to be an absolute jerk, but "becomes nicer" after meeting up with Kobato. Appears to have some issues that he helps Kobato find an owner for a stray cat after telling his college classmates he doesn't want to help them isn't very convincing. Secondly, Kobato's character is highly annoying. Her naivety is beyond that of even a child, or maybe the word should be stupidity? Or bimbotic? Either way, this is the first time I did not like a Kana Hanazawa character. The third main in Ioryogi is possibly the most likeable of the trio. That said, the bossy, fire breathing stuff animal is no Mokona or Keroberos, and pretty much insults the great "stuff animals" that we have seen by CLAMP thus far.

Enjoyment
While fire breathing, klutzy antics can be enjoyable once in a while, seeing every episode REALLY gets old, and poor characters and a lack of the heart warming feeling from a slice of life anime really kills off the enjoyment.

Overall, this anime has gone is a very poor direction. If I was new to the slice of life genre, watching this will make me want to permanantly avoid it. I had such high hopes for Kobato. Poor CLAMP production, poor Madhouse production. Disappointing.

I'm not someone who can't live without shoujo. In fact, I usually hate everything of the genre with a passion. Kobato. seemed like a happy exception to the rule, but after a few episodes, it became apparent that old habits die hard for me (or rather "shoujo sucks" is still upheld).


==[Pros]==

- Visuals. Like most CLAMP works, Kobato. has great character designs and is an artistic triumph. I usually hate chibi, but the chibi here is well-placed, albeit done a bit frequently.

- Kobato. She is a great character, reminiscent of Yotsuba in her curiosity and innocence. Her easily earned smile ... and ability to talk straightforwardly are traits that give off a childlike feel and ultimately make for an intriguing main character and an equally interesting plot.

- All of the mysteries. Why exactly is Kobato here? What is she? Does she even change clothes? Great questions... if left unanswered.


==[Cons]==

- The mysteries look like they're going to be solved. Ioryogi meets figures from his past and Kobato is mentioned more than once in his speech. I don't want the show to focus on the mysteries surrounding Kobato. All I want to see is an innocent girl interacting with the world around her. Is that too much to ask?

- Non-episodic nature. The early episodes are slice-of-life and run smoothly, but when Kobato gets hired, the show gets bogged down. Add to this an overall story, and the original slice-of-life qualities that I found impressive in Kobato. have all but vanished.

- Focus becomes Kobato's airhead qualities instead of her innocence and naivety. I want to see the world through Kobato's eyes. I don't want to see Kobato's eyes flat on the floor.

- Ioryogi is (as of ep. 6) in the show for comic relief and as a gateway into Kobato's background. Both of these purposes aren't exactly beneficial: fire breathing and sudden outbursts become old by episode two and learning Kobato's background answers questions that don't need to be answered.

- Fujimoto sucks. I hate him. Nothing about his character is even remotely appealing.


==[Conclusion]==
Great start for a shoujo, but ends up shifting direction from an interesting story about an innocent girl to a boring story about a bumbling fool and her mascot's uninteresting past.

Kobato is a show I really struggled to find raw enjoyment in. It may be part in fact that I am normally a fan of silly lighthearted romance comedies and the occasional shonen anime. Suffice to say that this would be one reason to avoid this show. If you're looking for something flashy that will grab your attention immediately, this show is worth removing from your "Plan to Watch" list.

However ultimately I did decide to watch this show to completion since I am open to trying new things.

The story is fairly down to earth, once you look past the obvious fact that ... Kobato and Ioryogi are obviously not normal beings. The show starts very slowly, playing itself out episodically as Kobato interacts with other people on different days of the seasons to heal them of their misfortunes and collect "candy" in the process. That by itself is fairly repetitive, and little is done to really explain in detail who exactly the main characters are. Aside from the occasional gag where Kobato's clumsiness gets the better of her (and Ioryogi's temper), it's hard to find anything that really stands out in this show, as plot and character development happens very slowly. I probably sympathize with Ioryogi's complaints about 'Dobato' in general not getting stuff done efficiently.

The art is at least pretty good. Characters and special effects have been drawn with pretty good detail, so the show at least won't make you want to tear your eyes out. The music isn't very special, aside from Kobato's song, and the first ED for this show is painfully uninteresting with an unremarkable song and a redundant animation of Kobato's candy bottle slowly rotating.

The story does try to pick itself up towards the end, explaining some of Fujimoto and Sayaka's background and how it relates to Yomogi nursery, and even closer towards the end there is some attempt to try to explain why Kobato is significant to this in the first place. The show becomes a bit of a confusing mess when there is some indirect attempts to hint around the backgrounds of the characters from other worlds and there is a good number of poorly explained ends.

Is this show what people would classify as of the shoujo genre? Maybe that genre is not meant for me. I'd like someone to tell me otherwise if there are perhaps better shows like this one. It's not like I find this show is outright horrible. While there are some humorous and tender moments, there really just isn't enough that happens over the course of 24 episodes. It's just a very slow show in general with a fairly uncomplicated plot that has few twists to really spark interest. Overall I really wouldn't recommend wasting ~12 hours on this show. I don't find this show good enough in anything to counterbalance how slow this show is. The characters aren't developed well enough for the most part, the story isn't really wholly amazing, and there isn't really much implementation of anything that will grab your attention like action scenes.

Decent storyline, but not really worth the watch unless you can stand the first 18 non motivating episodes of KOBATO GANBARAREHEORWO
However, the last few episodes are quite good.
One thing that caught me was the great artwork in this anime.
Personally not worth the watch, as it seems to be targeted toward a younger audience.

After reading the plot synopsis I expected a cute, heartwarming, fantasy/magical girl kind of experience. While it IS cute and it certainly IS heartwarming, I wish it was more fantasy-driven. Sadly, the fantasy elements remain very scarce throughout the anime (which is too bad because there was great potential). What you ultimately get is a sort of dull slice-of-life/drama/comedy kind of thing.

Too much of the story revolved around that damn preschool Kobato and Fujimoto worked at. There are episodes when the viewer easily forgets that there's supposed to be a fantasy element to this story. When it DOES get pointed out, everything is so ... vaguely explained that by the end of the story you're not even entirely sure you understood it right / what it is that ACTUALLY happened that made Kobato and Ioryogi come to Earth. Like, the actual events are never explained. Neither is Ioryogi's origin and all the different worlds that supposedly exist in the Kobato universe. (I'm doing my best not to write any spoilers here.)

The comedy is lazy and repetitive. Kobato is clumsy and/or does something stupid, Ioryogi yells at her and burns her. Wash, rinse, repeat.

There were certain moments that induced a lot of feels (the last two episodes especially!), but there were also certain moments where it either felt overly dramatic, or it fell flat and I ultimately felt nothing. So yeah. Overall, a big meh from me.

I would've given this anime an even worse rating had it not been for the overall cuteness and the good feels it occassionally brought me. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, I just think there could've been done a lot more and there's a lot of wasted potential.

Also, Fujimoto can go suck a d*ck.

For as long as I've heard of Kobato, I had always wanted to watch/read it. I have been on and off with the manga and still haven't finished it. I've recently finished the anime and basically, it's another work of CLAMP.

CLAMP is a great shoujo group with famous works like Card Captor Sakura, xxxHolic, Wish etc. It's a group of women who make cute stories and handsome male characters for girls to read and look at. Because all the stories are made by the same group, they have this privilege of incorporating older stories into their newer ones, eg. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. Kobato does this ... too with Chobits and Wish incorporated into the anime/manga. There are also references to other anime. I think that this incorporation really made Kobato fun for me. I was soo excited whenever I saw Kohaku as I love her character soo much.

ANYWAYS. The story was quite interesting, just only in the last 3 episodes. It's a slow paced anime and does not rush through the story at all. Each episode is a new day of what silly/helpful things Kobato will do. It's similar to TRC how each episode is a story in itself that doesn't really continue with the actually plot. You move through Kobato's day to day life with the same ongoing jokes. I personally did not find it very entertaining. I skipped about 3-4 episodes because I didn't want to know what Kobato was doing. I wanted to know why the things were the way they were and how it would turn out. I believe there was one episode which particularly touched me, episode 17 I think. You could probably watch episode one then skip all the way to about 19-21 without missing a lot. For me, it was boring, but then again, I prefer fast paced anime.

Besides, the slow paced middleness, the ending really did touch me. I will admit to crying at the end and maybe in episode 17. Where CLAMP really tried, all the feels did come through. Being a made by girls, made for girls thing, they really do know how to bring out the tears. The ending was well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The characters. You see quite a few recurring characters from other CLAMP works which made me really happy. The main character is your typical dumb klutz who everyone hates. I hated her character so much. It was so typical, like CLAMP didn't even bother trying to bring out an original character. I didn't feel that there was a lot of character development. Each episode was basically Kobato trying to awkwardly help someone out with Ioryogi and/or Kiyokazu yelling at her with Chitose and/or Sayaka being supportive of her really clueless actions. You do see some character development towards the end of the series but I don't feel it was really justified.

CLAMP's artwork is generally incredibly beautiful. As I said before, CLAMP knows what girls want. The designs are typical designs with the scarily lanky and tall characters but they are still sooo pleasing to the eye. I just love the character designs. I've always loved CLAMP art. I was a bit disappointed with the lack of dresses Kobato wore. There were only about four? One for each season I think. I was really looking forward to new dresses because Kobato is just soo cute and it perfect to play around with dresses. The manga art is even more beautiful with such detail. I know you do get to see it in the last ED (I'm not sure if there's more than one) and I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

Sound, I'm never really too sure on sound. Nothing stood out to me though. None of the OPs/EDs, no really fitting BGM or anything. I'd just say average.

Overall, I could've spent my time better but as a CLAMP fan, I would've regret not watching Kobato. I'm not saying that it's bad, just shoujo isn't my genre anymore. It's a kind of typical shoujo with the sweet bits of fantasy that CLAMP does so well. Nothing really happens but when it does, it really hits home. I would say if you like shoujo, you would like this anime. For those who don't like this anime, stay away from it. It will most likely be a waste of your time. With those who want to watch it but aren't a fan of shoujo, you are very welcome to skip episodes. Like I said, the only real important bits are at the very start where everything is introduced and the end where the feels are. If you already know the premise, you could pretty much just skip to the end coz nothing happens. A few background info is given in around episode 7 (not sure at all) so watch out for those. They can make the ending make a bit more sense, though not all of it is clearly explained. Some things were still left unanswered. Kobato is a good shoujo, but nothing much else. That's really all there it :)

A decent Shoujo.

It basically this girl sent to the human world to fix problems and collect "healed hearts" to get her wish granted(love related).

Her kindness and innocence will rub off you.

The way she gets hearts is simple and expected form the genre.Simple one- off sloutions where she sits down and talks sense into those she helps.

Kobato says a few nice words and conveniently solves the problem,
rather than actually trying to figure it out the means to do so and do it right. It takes away believability, but it is still heart-warming.
...
Her pet toy dog companion has a pretty interesting backstory but it was never fully explained in the anime. More telling than actually showing.

Every body in the show may seem too naive and innocient for their own good, but there is some meaninigful tension for the show.

Every character turns out to be an idealistically good guy even the Yakuza.

The characters you should look out for is Fujimoto.A contrast for kobato and where most of the conflist comes from.Her toy pet buddy also serves to give most of the humour.

Oh yeah, if you're a fan of clamps works, there are a few cameos of other characters.

The most impressive aspect of the show is her song.Which allows to define her as a character.

The ending is pretty much ok.....

I wish it took itself a bit more seriously, tried more realistic characters, expand the plot, make to world not revolve around the main character, challenge her beliefs.It could have been so much more.

But you will enjoy it if you are a fan of Shoujo.

This is my first Clamp series (aside from Code Geass). Yes, I'm a neophyte when it comes to this particular corner of the anime world, and regardless of what else I say, I am interested in seeing more series from Clamp, though not because of the various cameos in this series. Those were honestly a little distracting.

And I'm not entering into this one with a negative attitude towards it. Sure, it's a little saccharine, but that's kind of the point. A young woman appears suddenly in a town with a talking, fire-breathing stuffed animal with the chief goal of mending peoples' broken hearts. If that's ... not a premise for a saccharine show, I don't know what is. So when people start inviting this random stranger into their homes and preschools, you just kind of roll with it. That's the kind of show you're watching. It's not meant to be strongly realistic.

That's the vibe I rode through much of the series and I genuinely had a good time with it. The set-up of Kobato meets and helps a new person in the town felt like a great way to build out the world, including some very touching stories about lost love and letting things go, in particular. I only wish we'd gotten to see more instances of this, or at least gotten to see how her many interactions changed the town around her - honestly, just a few SoL moments of her walking down the street and running into people who know her by name after walking in a stranger would have helped establish the depth and breadth of connections she was making beyond the small scope we actually see during the series.

But therein lies the problem: I think this is the best stuff in the series. The throughline stories involving a moneylender trying to tear down the school, Sayaka's relationship with her estranged husband, Fujimoto's background and, most especially, Kobato's entire reason for being here along with Ioryogi just don't work nearly as well.

To start, the series strings along watchers with a lot of its central mysteries. It's not necessarily a problem to have big reveals towards the end of a series, but it does mean that we can't really interact with a characters' past or their aspirations. We're told from the start that Kobato wants to go... somewhere. It's not clear where for a very long time, so it's hard to get behind her desire, which is the central drive of the series. It's just too vague to get invested, and when things are finally revealed, I'm usually left with more questions than answers. What seemed clear often was revealed to be far less so, and character motivations make less sense when considering the answers we are given.

But it's not just the mysteries that bother me. Even when revelations come sooner and characters linger in the story, they shift from apparent threat to background noise back to threat and finally to... pillar of support? There are opportunities to both establish and build on relationships that are missed, turning much of what happens into an arc that takes such sudden turns that it gave me whiplash. It's not like there were no breadcrumbs leading up to these moments, but they made me question a lot of how characters behaved and why for much of the series.

And then there's the relationships. Leaving aside issues of how these narratives resolved, I didn't find that the story did much to invest me in any of the romances. If anything, it made it actively more difficult to root for the pairings it aimed to establish. I'm not going to spoil any given relationship, but the show actively rejects some of the more obvious chemistries it establishes in favor of something that feels forced and contrived to happen by the plot itself. Another relationship is both built on an untold amount of time together and marred by strife, but since one of the characters hardly shows up after they apparently reconcile, we hardly get to appreciate seeing it mended. For a show about mending broken hearts, it was disappointing to see it falter with its longer-running examples.

Finally, there's the ending. I know I've vaguely alluded to some of what's there, but as a whole, it just left me wanting. There were elements that felt like they were just there to leave us on a certain note, and the show didn't seem to care how we got there. Sure, it was once again that saccharine sweetness, but it felt like we were duty-bound to end up there rather than seeing it build more organically.

The show is still a good time when it just sits with these characters and offers moments for Kobato to be a real force for good. It's just a shame they're baked into a story that left me scratching my head or frustrated so often.

I quite liked this anime, the different characters, the story is good although there are many holes to fill in, the plot is not told very well.

In my opinion I think it is very overrated, Kobato is like a Mary Poppins but clumsy, and the story of gangsters and that someone owes money is very seen. I liked the ending of the manga more than the ending of the anime, it's not so corny, it seemed much more natural to meI quite liked this anime, its different characters, the story is good although there are many holes to fill in, the plot is not told ... very well.

In my opinion I think it is very overrated, Kobato is like a Mary Poppins but clumsy, and the story of gangsters and that someone owes money is very seen. I liked the ending of the manga more than the ending of the anime, it's not so corny, it seemed much more natural to meI quite liked this anime, its different characters, the story is good although there are many holes to fill in, the plot is not told very well.

In my opinion I think it is very overrated, Kobato is like a Mary Poppins but clumsy, and the story of gangsters and that someone owes money is very seen. I liked the ending of the manga more than the ending of the anime, it's not so corny, it seemed much more natural to me

Kobato in and of itself is a pretty enjoyable, innocent anime if you watch episodes 1 up to 22. There is world building and buildup to a greater reveal in the background, whereas small stories about people and their problems of connecting with others are in the foreground. With her innocent and kind of clueless earnestness, Kobato manages to get through to all of them. It's calm, the pacing is relaxed, there are a lot of nice recurring characters as well as the usual Clamp cameos. It's a nice overall package.

Now the final two episodes however are a different beast. Kobato's wish that has been ... eluded to but has never been explained in more detail than "there is a place she wishes to go" gets revealed and it's actually pretty disappointing. There is no buildup to any of it, and there is a certain character relationship that develops gradually and fairly nicely, until in episode 23 the director decided to tell us that it was totally much further than the show ever presented and it feels unearned. The nicely weaved in details about the history of characters like Ioryogi and Ginsei are entirely ignored. It feels like the decision on how to end the show was made far too late.

Going into a little more detail, and spoilers from here on out - so proceed at your own risk! - let's get into the relationship between Kobato and Fujimoto.

At no point in the show does it feel anywhere near romantic. It progresses naturally, with stoic and efficient Fujimoto being annoyed with Kobatos childish antics at first, only to realize how her childlike innocence instills hope and has the power to mend relationships of those around her. He grows to care for her and to enjoy himself more. It's kind of understandable that Kobato grows to like him romantically, but not the other way around. Until the very end of episode 22, her keeps her at a distance, but by the beginning tof episode 23, we suddenly see a flashback of someone resembling him and someone resembling Kobato in what's clearly a setting different from the one of the show? It feels like the moment Kobato is gone from the apartment, Fujimoto just summons love for her out of nowhere and tries everything to get her back. Admittedly, he never says "I love you" or something like it, but it's still a huge jump with what he was comfortable expressing towards her beforehand.
And the whole "reincarnated previous lovers bound by fate" thing was just lame, dumb and comes out of nowhere. It feels like a shorthand for a development that was supposed to have been there, but ended up being cut out in favor of episodes that while not really considered filler, do have self-contained stories that don't amount to much.
Likewise the moment in episode 24, when all of a sudden, the reincarnated Kobato just gains her "memories" back through magic and that's the end of the show. It was really, really disappointing and kind of turned other exciting developments in the show sour for me since they didn't amount to anything and felt a little pointless in retrospect.

Overall, the show was enjoyable enough. If you like your calm, relaxing (if not quite Iyashikei) shows you'll enjoy this one, but don't expect the background details to amount to anything.