KirePapa

Note: This review only covers Episode 1 of KirePapa.

KirePapa is the story of the gorgeous, slightly scatter-brained author Chisato Takatsukasa, who lives alone with his son Riju after his divorce. Chisato is convinced that Riju's many male friends are all out to take advantage of his cute teenage son - with some justification, since several of the so-called friends have made passes at Chisato himself - and in his efforts to protect the boy he resorts to dirty tactics, such as welcoming the friends into his home and then feeding them snacks which have been laced with laxatives. In the majority of cases his tricks do work, because Chisato is so beautiful that no one ever suspects him of evil intent: but there is one person who seems to see straight through him, and that's Riju's best friend, Shunsuke. Despite four years of his efforts to get rid of Shunsuke, the younger man continues to visit Chisato's home, and Chisato is starting to wonder whether he might actually be the 'real thing' - someone who genuinely wants nothing more than to be Riju's friend. But although Shunsuke certainly is a good friend to Riju, he also has an ulterior motive for hanging around Chisato's house, and some secrets of his own...

The first thing to note about KirePapa is that it is hilariously funny. I've seen some reviewers criticize it because of its (over) use of melodrama and Yaoi/Shounen-ai stereotypes, but in fact KirePapa (rather like anime series Ouran High School Host Club) is a parody of those very stereotypes, and an excellent one at that. As soon as Chisato's smiling face is animated with sparkles and red roses as a back-drop (while he is handing out poisoned cake to his son's friends) you realize that this is a show with its tongue firmly in its cheek. However, while there are plenty of Chibi moments and visual comedy, most of the humour comes from brilliant dialogue and the sharp interaction of the characters. Shunsuke's wry comment that he never expected to hear the word 'fair' come out of Chisato's mouth made me choke with laughter.

That's not to say that the show doesn't have its emotional elements too. Although everything is played for laughs, I found the central love story between Chisato and Shunsuke really sweet, and it was certainly refreshing to watch a Yaoi anime in which the angst was kept to a realistic minimum. The twist of a much younger seme attempting to seduce a older uke was also welcome.

The animation in this is generally of a high standard, with beautiful use of colour and detailed, realistic character designs. Occasionally an awkward angle will make one of the characters appear to have a weirdly distorted face, but comparing the artwork to something like, say, Okane ga Nai, I definitely have to give it a thumbs up. The voice acting here is really, really strong - in particular Takahiro Sakurai, who despite his relatively light timbered voice brings a great deal of power and sensuality to the character of Shunsuke. The musical score lets the anime down a trifle - it had a tendency to tinkle away at just the wrong moment, and didn't add much to the emotional intensity of any scene. In particular, it felt out of place during the love scene. I would have preferred no music at all.

The only reason I can't give this anime an A+ is that it did feel as if a lot of events were being squashed into the 30 minutes - even though the characters were surprisingly well fleshed out, they would have benefited from an extra fifteen minutes to give their relationship a stronger basis. I understand that this is only the first episode of a longer series, and so I hope to see more development in forthcoming episodes. Regardless of that, I enjoyed this anime more than any I've watched for quite some time, and its humour definitely earns it a place in my top five Yaoi anime. I can't wait for the next one to be released.