#kotaro being just. a strange kid its just so charming

[hotchology]

hi sweets, quickly question (sorry if i bother you): what are your top 3 tv shows recommendations?

you could never bother me !!!! i see u in my notifs and i jump 4 joy!!!!! my top 3 is hard i had a hard enough time condensing down to five for serializd BUT!!! ill try to keep it one rec per genre :p

house (currently watching/rewatching, quickly becoming a show i cant be normal about)

community (long time favorite, masterful sitcom, pagets in the last season and her character is one of my favorites in the entire show!!)

and yellowjackets (psychological horror drama disaster mystery thing, kind of hard to explain bc its definitely more than that its not as dark as that makes it seem but its also every bit as dark as that makes it seem if that makes sense. but i started it mid season 2 airing and i fell in loveee with it its so interesting)

[okayto]

Mini-Review: Kotaro Lives Alone

Shin Karino thought he only had to deal with the average problems that any thirty-something trying to make it as a manga artist would have to: Encroaching deadlines, artist's block, frequent back pain, and all that. His life takes a turn for the strange, however, when he meets Kotaro, an incredibly precocious four-year-old who lives on his own in Shin's apartment complex. Kotaro pays his own bills, makes his own food, and is much more capable than your average kindergartener. That said, he's still just a kid, and soon Shin and the other tenants find themselves becoming the found family that Kotaro truly needs.

A big reason Kotaro works is that Kotaro, himself, is incredibly charming. Yes, you have to suspend some disbelief to accept the premise of “4-year-old successfully lives by himself,” but for all his precociousness and intelligence, he’s also a young kid: he has a tendency to black-an-white beliefs/understandings of the world, loves an obnoxious-to-adults kids’ cartoon, and mimics its samurai characters’ speech patterns, sounding oddly formal and, yes, like a kid trying to sound grown-up.

This was a great mix of humor and pathos: the former helps keep the latter from overwhelming. Kotaro is dry and deadpan, and like many kids is a mixture of “understands more than you think,” “thinks he understands but doesn’t,” and “doesn’t understand but won’t admit it.”

It’s very fun: Kotaro is a likable character, kept from being too obnoxious in the vein of genius-small-children archetypes by having many of the weaknesses of his peers (not knowing how the world works, jealousy when his adults pay attention to other kids, deep and abiding love for a cartoon adults can’t stand). And the adult characters, his apartment-building-neighbors, also aren’t sure what to do with this small child who is formally and seriously introducing himself as their neighbor, sans other adults.

You know when you’re in a situation around other people, and no one is quite sure if what’s going on actually needs to be addressed because it’s kinda on the border of weird, or because no one else has said anything yet, so you’re all looking at each other silently asking “should we be doing something? should someone say something? this is weird, right? we agree this is weird?”? That’s how the adults feel, but especially Karino.

This is a kid, but he does have legal guardians who know he’s living alone. So it’s not my business? But he’s a young kid. Should I do something? But I don’t want to get involved. But he’s a kid.

I’ve seen criticism of the show’s art, and while it’s not the prettiest anime to exist, I liked it. In particular, I like Kotaro’s weirdly un-emotive expression and impenetrable eyes. Contrast his appearance with the other kids who show up, looking fairly normal...and then notice that the person whose facial design resembles Kotaro’s the most is his neighbor Karino: an adult, somewhat apathetic, not particularly happy with life.

Kotaro’s lack of expression can be played for laughs, and adds to the impenetrability of his feelings, but to me it’s also an early sign that this is a kid who has experience things, and had to face life, at a level usually reserved for adults.

As the series goes on (at a mere 10 episodes), we learn more about Kotaro’s past, and why the titular character lives alone. The episodes themselves are a mix of humor (Kotaro Does a Thing with all the seriousness of an elderly hermit; neighbors get involved to various degrees) and gravity (when it’s often revealed that Kotaro’s Thing-Doing is related to something in his past, or the whole thing about him living without adults). It made me cry a little, but in a good way.

Verdict

English dub? Yes!

Visuals: Average. Kotaro’s stark design may be off-putting to some, but I thought his character design worked well (as detailed in the review), and the style of the show overall felt deliberate to me--we’re dealing with an absurd situation as the premise and the art felt like it added to that impression.

Worth watching? Yes. Turn off the part of your brain that won’t shut up about how irresponsible it would be to let a 4-year-old actually live alone (how loud this part of your brain is will vary from person to person) and enjoy the dry humor, reluctant found family (found uncles and aunts?) shenanigans, and tear up a bit. And at 10 episodes, it's a little shorter than a normal anime season.

Where to watch (USA, as of April 2023): Netflix (sub and dub)

Click my “reviews” tag below or search “mini review” on my blog to find more!