Kamisama Kazoku

Kamisama Kazuko or The Kamisama Family is a 12 episode slice of life, romantic comedy that follows two high school students, Samataro and Tenko. Samataro is God’s son and Tenko is his guardian angle. Samataro is living as a normal human so that he can better understand them for when he takes over the role of God. Tenko lives with Samataro and their relationship in school is that of long time friends, with her being raised by his family. Samataro also has two sisters and his mother. His mother was once a normal human, but God fell head over heels for her, married her, made her a goddess and they popped out three kids. Misa, the older sister, is evil, cunning and sadistic. Meme, the younger sister is stoic, calm and mature…almost goth like in some ways. The entire family, besides Tenko, does everything in their power to screw with Samataro due to his gullible nature. Over the years Tenko has developed a strong love for her ward but he is unaware of her feelings and treats her as his sister.

 

    As with all romantic titles a challenger must show up to put pressure on the delicate relationship between the two main characters. That is done with the arrival of a mysterious transfer student named Kumiko. Samataro instantly falls for her, causing Tenko great jealousy and pain. She shortly transfers away, due to Meme and Misa’s meddling, but the damage is already done and Tenko doubts her chances of receiving Samataro’s love. Tenko must struggle not only with her feelings for Samataro but her usefulness in his life. Samataro, regardless of his interest in Tenko on a lover basis, must work to not lose, what he sees, as his closest friend.

 

    What can I say but this is a slice of school life romance. The art is typical, the story lines are typical, at one point it even relies on an 'It’s a Wonderful Life' arc. The animation is typical anime style and quality for the past few years. The music is typical and forgettable. The characters fall nicely into traditional stereotypical roles in romantic comedies of late and the comedy is even canned to some extent. All things considered it is not a bad series, I have watched worse. Due to its short length it is even tolerable. As with so many other short series it is best used as a quick fix for your romance story requirements between longer and better written stories. It is just another show of mediocre quality and value that can be added to the pile with other such shows as Tona-Gura and Boys Be…

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, this series does not appear to have been licensed anywhere outside of Japan...and probably never will be.