SEWAYAKI KITSUNE NO SENKO-SAN (2019)

click here to return to "REVIEWS"

helpful senko san is worse than indulgent--it's borderline offensive in its shallowness. well! that just about reveals my overall thoughts, but i'm not happy to leave it at just that. there's so many different things that bother me overall with sewayaki kitsune no senko-san that i'd feel wrong not touching on every single aspect--but first, a couple clarifications. one: i am aware that this is an adaptation. in this sense, i can forgive the team for simply doing their best to adapt what i assume to be just as awful material as what is animated. in another sense, i can't forgive the team when i consider adapting to be an art and that an adaptation should strive to eclipse the source material and exist as its own unique product. in a final sense, i can totally forgive the team because this was a tick-off-all-the-boxes money machine through and through and they chased that money to the bank because why the hell would they not. additionally, a lot of the complaints i'm going to have here are probably more than just senko-san, instead probably more appropriately focused on the "hole" it is digging into. but i watched senko-san, so here we fucking are. enough preamble. first thing's first: the art is quite good. there's really never anything too special to look at: i don't remember more than four or five different environments even existing, the majority of the show taking place inside an apartment (not that this is a problem, but as far as art variety goes...). characters are certainly drawn appealingly, and there's rarely any animation that sticks out in a negative sense (with the only example really coming to mind being a backrubbing scene with zero weight or interaction to it). sound design is good, too, and it's not like any song in the show is obnoxious or anything. so hat's off, there. now, let's dive in. the first thing i want to truly ask: who is this show intended for? furthermore--what is helpful senko-san performing for exactly in its genre? this is half rhetorical--i realize obsessive otaku is the answer, but the other half is genuine, and reflective: what do otaku like about this? a slice of life anime involving cute girls doing cute things, for instance, is vapid but comfortable in its simplicity: cute girls really do just go around and do cute things for twelve episodes, ticking off the tropes of the genre and cementing themselves as the usual 7/10s that they are. helpful senko-san feels immeasurably worse than that concept, however. it bills itself as a "romance" involving a certain male nobody, a black hole of personality fit for self insertion, and a doting fox-girl who is completely and utterly sanitized to be a robotic personal maid/servant/lover/mother. now, whether the otaku audience has mommy issues or girlfriend troubles or anything else, i must ask this question i've been leading up to: is this show REALLY the aphrodisiac to the masses that it's set up to be? does it really placate otaku who yearn for these sorts of fantasies? as in... when the show is set up and finished and done, where exactly are you? a CGDCTSOL (how's that for a mouthful) is a window into the lives of cute girls screwing around and then you look away from the window. helpful senko-san is you, the viewer, stepping into the flesh suit of character nakano for twelve episodes, imagining yourself "pampered" and taken care of by the littlest most perfect aide to ever exist, and then it ends and... well, i have trouble shaking away the imagery of seeing your self insert laugh along with all his friends in a richly colored world before the screen dims, the camera pulls back, and there sits the otaku, the illumination of his computer monitor not only capturing him but the squalor of his desk, the rows of beer bottles clumped together, an undone mattress in the corner, a--let me be direct. i am not making fun of senko viewers. what i am getting at is an unintentional cruelness on the part of the show: what is the archetype of those who self insert strongest supposed to do next? how do they even feel? how SHOULD they feel? and all of this leads to another line of questioning: am i projecting? hah, i suppose so, but the question stands. and another line of questioning: is there anything wrong with a self insert in a romantic setting? romance is a big genre, after all, so why am i being unfair towards this one when there stands thousands more? and now, we can take apart the meat of the show. the helpful senko san is unbelievably shallow. ankle deep. the wet on your skin after a shower but before the towel. over twelve episodes, we meet five characters, and each one of them is, without exaggeration, absolutely nothing. main character nakano is an every man who works a demanding job (and i'll touch on that later) who has very, very, very simple characteristics: he is a hard worker. he likes to eat food. he can feel embarrassment. he plays video games and watches anime sometimes. that's it. there's the character. i'll just unzip his costume for you so you can gear up, okay? across from him is his lovely fox servant, senko, and here is her character: cheerful. doting. happy. subservient. docile. willing. very willing. exists for nakano. alright, there's your girlfriend for twelve episodes! or, wait, that's not right, because the show gets really, really weird with the crossing boundaries of what constitutes a marriage and what constitutes having a sugar mommy. indeed, these lines are blurred between whether nakano sees his submissive servant as his partner or his mom, and she feeds into it, and it's all... kind of disturbing, really. and empty, because there's so little to either of their characters that, really, whatever kind of "relationship" they form is vapid... and worthless. it's so much worse than just being "not that deep". and to what plots do these characters engage in? all sorts! like... shopping for groceries. drinking. eating. taking a bath. using a vacuum cleaner. working. yeah, real exciting, but why is this different from the aforementioned CGDCTSOL genre? well, it's been awhile, but in the last two i watched--yuru yuri and new game--i seem to remember there being some forms of conflict and character squabbles in each episode, even if only slightly. characters in these shows somehow define themselves more than anyone in senko-san, and that's surprising... and kind of depressing. every episode here is a wet blanket of plot. there never exists any kind of real pushback to anything save for an absolutely paper thin pathetic attempt at underlying drama that one will unearth for themselves should THEY choose to follow this episodic virtual pampering. and, again, if the point isn't to watch cute girls do cute things nor to have any sort of real, substantial plot develop, then the point has to be, again, to self insert and indulge myself. but what am i indulging in? nakano gets a backrub. i'm not getting a backrub. i'm not getting anything. i've written way, way too much about such an empty show, but this last bit of criticism is something i feel more necessary than anything else: helpful senko-san plays with the idea of critiquing the rigorous and disgustingly unhealthy standard of japan working culture. the phase is "plays with it", unfortunately, and that pisses me off, because why do it all then? in almost every episode, we get glances into his working life, the unfair conditions, the constant stress imbued, the, frankly, harassment stemming from his coworkers and boss that feed into his own time, the... oh, it's all such bullshit because nakano just shrugs it off, right. well, he's got senko-san, it's all okay! that's fucking great, but there's millions of workers who DON'T have senko-san, and they DO face the constant horseshit conditions that nakano does, and the show just doesn't do enough with the window it offers. lean into it more, damn it. have some teeth, you pathetic otaku fantasy. a conversation begins with the easiest placation an anxious populace purposefully seeks--entertainment. ... sorry, one more quip. i don't fucking get the tail thing. at all