Inukami!

Information of Anime

Keita Kawahira comes from a historic Inukami tamer family.  Inukamis are demon that have the appearance of human expect they have a tail since they are wolves.  Because of his lacking ability in this area, Keita gets thrown out of the house.  But he manages to get a Inukami named Yoko for his own.  However, Yoko isn't the type of Inukami he wished to have as she causes troubles for him everyday.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

It's mainly Keita & Yoko working together in fighting off demons as a paid job to cover their living expenses.  At times, his grandmother Souke Kawahira would send her Inukami Hake to come visit for certain occasions.  Also, his cousin Karou would ask Keita to take care of his ten Inukamis.  If there is a plot, it would be how Karou's ten Inukamis see Keita differently from a raging pervert to a kind person; even though he chases them.  Things turn a bit when Keita & Yoko lose their home after defeating a Grim Reaper in their previous job as a curse & start to face life homeless & poor.  From there, they live under a bridge & continue their daily adventures like before.  But things pick up a bit from there.

As the show progress with the revival of a great mage pervert, we start to see more of Karou.  Also, we see another side of him a bit when he secretly teams up with their enemy, the great perverted sage Sekidousai.  As the show progress with Yoko's father Dai Yoko finally breaking his seal, Dai Yoko gets captured by Sekidousai to absorb his inukami powers.  The truth of Karou gets revealed.

It turns out that Karou is living in a fake body while his real one is sealed away.  He teamed up with Sekidousai in hopes that he can remove the curse & restore his body.  Turns out it was a lie.  Aside from Karou's truth, we also learn how Keita & Yoko met when they were young.

In the final battle, Sekidousai turns out to be Jasei in disguise.  He kills Karou which leaves his inukamis to avenge his death.  Even with the help of Youko, Jasei's powers are too strong.  However, Keita would save the day when he changes back to normal.  This is with help of his friends (including his perverted ones) & Youko.  Keita's frozen body is revealed to his inukamis & they realize that their rings with him are still on their fingers, meaning his soul is wandering around somewhere.  The story ends with his inukamis going on a search for his soul & Keita & Youko's relationship goes back to the usual punishment mode.

My Personal Review

Inukami! is a laugh fest fill with ecchi humour.  It seems to touch the limits with a lot of strange characters & situations.  Plus, you get a lot of different type of girls in one show.  If you like ecchi harems, this is for you.

Animation

The character designs give all the main characters such round faces & big eyes.  Also, the pupils look a little freaky a bit.  It's not something that I'm use to seeing really.  But, the girls are still cute looking.  However, the main male characters look too feminine.  Aside from his voice, Keita's hairstyle & large eyes really makes him look like girl.  Also, I thought Hake was a girl as well until I heard him speak.

The backgrounds are pretty much on the dull side as not much details are put into it.

The colours are pretty dull, which is good for the sceneries.  For the characters, they are a little bright.  This helps distinguish them between them & the backgrounds.

In terms of the animation movement, it's a mixture.  Sometimes the movements are smooth & sometimes the movements look weird.  One example is where Keita was chasing Kaoru's Inukami's as a dog.  It really looked strange as if he was floating in the air.  There are a lot of those funny movements, but it mostly occurs during Keita's perverted moments or anything along those lines.  Overall, the flow is pretty smooth & flowing in most areas.

Sound       

The sound effects are more on the silly side since this is a harem type of anime.  The sounds were crisp & cued on the mark.

The seiyuus here are pretty good.  I really liked Keita's voice work as it makes him a pervert.  However, the voice pitch is quite high & makes him sound a bit feminine at times.  Also, there are times where his voice can't reach certain situations.  Using the dog example again, his barks were pretty weak.  For the girls, not too bad as they played their roles pretty well.  However, I won't consider them to be the best.  But, they are above average.

The music really helps create the mood well.  It's quite catchy as it has an upbeat pop feel to it.  Some of the songs actually stick to my head for some reason.

Story

There doesn't seem to a storyline at all until we watch a bit past the show's halfway point.  Although we see how each of Kaoru's Inukamis see Keita as a kind perverted person, I don't see that doing much as a main storyline possibly.  Even as character development elements they don't do much.  There was a hint about Yoko saying the Keita forgotten about her, but I don't see anything that builds into that.  I'm only going to assume that she wants to be with him as her lover.  I'm not going to say that's 100% sure even though she does things to Keita that makes him look at her only.  But, she wants to be with him for sure despite all the bad comments she makes of him & the physical pain involved.  After the halfway point, we start to see some of Kaoru's character which leads to a storyline.  However, the show would end with a continuation to the story.  In fact, it goes back to square one as if the storyline didn't matter too much for the show with the exception of Karou's situation.

One thing to note about the anime is the jokes.  Although they are perverted & a bit extreme, they don't get old somehow.  One example is Yoko sending a naked Keita in public areas & have him arrested for it.  The jokes appears at times during the show, but it doesn't get overused.  I applaud the writers for doing something like that.  It keeps them fresh really even though Keita is a raging crazed pervert.  However, there are some situations where we have macho men running around & doing some perverted actions such as dressing girl clothing & shaking their hips in tight bikinis.  Also, the use of "elephants" & men getting in on together shows up more often after the halfway point.  It can be a turn off to some people.

Overall Conclusion

Inukami! is a great anime show to watch for the laughs.  The jokes are funny even though they are ecchi related.  However, it may not appeal to the female audience as it's heavily targeted to the young male audience.  If you like ecchi harems, this is perfect for you.  But be aware of the manly male jokes.

Inukami! gets a 7.5/10.  The jokes are great & never seem to get old.  However, the show lacks a good storyline & I don't think you should expect one here as it is a short show.  The way it end really opens up for the movie that was released in theatres.