Kekkaishi

Sha la la la la la…I find myself humming this tune a lot now. And the weird thing is that this started with the manga.

Yoshimori Sumimura and Tokine Yukimura, are called Kekkaishi. Kekkaishi use kekkai, a technique to capture and destroy ayakashi (monsters and demons). As heirs to a clan that has protected the land of Karasumori for generations, they must perform that duty usually every night–and sometimes even during the day!

Kekkaishi, The Manga

In my boredom, it must have been luck I pointed the mouse’s cursor to this title–I actually had ignored the anime series when it came out last year. So what drew me to the manga?

Kekkaishi is classified as a shounen manga, but fortunately for now, it hasn’t triggered my current, general aversion to most titles in the shounen category (that does not have mecha). I like it for the simple fun to be found in each chapter–there are no lolis, no ecchi, no moe, no annoying character (yet). The action scenes are also quite simple, no overly complicated and pompous jutsus here. What our two main characters, Yoshimori and Tokine, just do, is make a square barrier (the kekkai) that is used in various ways to achieve their objective: destroy ayakashi.

With a setting like this, it’s easy to make it repetitive and boring. But for me, it’s the characters, Yoshimori and Tokine, that also matter. Actually, I think both are cute kids: Tokine, most of the time, and Yoshimori when he’s making cakes. But aside from the two, there are also interesting characters that back them up, which is quite important. Gay dogs, anyone? 🙂

As for now, the manga is still ongoing. And from what I’ve read so far, things are definitely getting more interesting.

Kekkaishi, The Anime

I’m still trying to catch up with this one. I also felt the same way when I watched Nodame Cantabile–some excitement seems to be lost when you already have an idea what’s going to happen next. However, it wasn’t as bad as the feeling I had with the Nodame anime. One difference is that with Kekkaishi, I don’t think I’ll stop reading the manga anytime soon. With Nodame, I had to stop reading the manga so that I could appreciate the anime more. The Kekkaishi OP is also loads better than the Nodame one, I think. (It’s also quite the LSS material.)

As for the adaptation, well, most of the time the anime does ok. Although the reactions of ‘hey, that was different’, ‘it wasn’t like that in the manga’, do crop up. For example, Minou-sensei doesn’t come as very charming at all; it would have been better if his hair was more blonde-ish. The story about that special chocolate cake was altered in major way, but since it was side story it didn’t matter much. Well, a lot of the funny moments seem to have been preserved, which is a good sign. However, there’s that one annoying thing: those pesky advertisements. That (in)famous M, the logo of that American fastfood giant, appears every now and then.

I have no idea how many episodes the show will be, but right now, I get the feeling the show will end differently from the manga. And I can only hope for a good one.