Watching Kobato, 1/3
I've been watching Kobato. The auditive experience is like Hetalia in full format, with Chibitalia as a Magical Girl and the Puffin as his sidekick.
It's far from pure-bred Magical Girl, but the fundamentals are there: gullible girl sets out with the goal of healing broken hearts, and collecting them as "confetti" in a magical bottle. When the bottle is full, she gets her wish granted: her wish is "to travel to places". We do not yet know what more this wish entails, why she needs divine help to get there, who it is that will grant it or even where the hell Kobato is from - her first accomplishment is to get a job and a room, after having lived in the park. She moves on to get an occupation of sorts by volunteering at a kindergarten. The early episodes hint that she might not be human - certainly is not one from our place and time - so I expect there is going to be some plot involved at some point.
The one mediating between Kobato and the ones who will fulfill her wish is Iorogi-san, a supernatural being of unknown origin, currently in the form of a stuffed dog. He's voiced by whoever it was that did Kurogane in Tsubasa, and has - believe it or not - an even worse temper. Other recurring characters are Sayaka-sensei (owner of the debt-ridden kindergarten), Fujimoto (works at the kindergarten and lives in the same building as Kobato, looks most likely to end up as The Person Just For Her but with CLAMP it wouldn't surprise me if he ended up with the teacher), and the Mihara family sans He Who Proposed To Misaki's Mom (owns the apartment building, real girls this time).
Other CLAMP cameos so far: The Old Lady of xxxHolic and the one that even Tsubasa forgot: WISH oh my god. No, not just the bunny. There's a sad lack of black wings and Shuichiro's brief appearances made him look even more like the Stoic Clamp Male than he was in the manga, but what the hell. We have canon animated recognition of Kohaku (still an angel, sadly not in chibi form).
There are no transformation sequences and the Mission of the Day format is not as set as it could have been, but the hearts that Kobato heals don't offer any news. Boy is sad because mother works long hours. Old man is mourning the lost love of his youth. Kitten is homeless. Kobato is cute. Someone should write fic about her trading jobs with Subaru and Watanuki.
It's far from pure-bred Magical Girl, but the fundamentals are there: gullible girl sets out with the goal of healing broken hearts, and collecting them as "confetti" in a magical bottle. When the bottle is full, she gets her wish granted: her wish is "to travel to places". We do not yet know what more this wish entails, why she needs divine help to get there, who it is that will grant it or even where the hell Kobato is from - her first accomplishment is to get a job and a room, after having lived in the park. She moves on to get an occupation of sorts by volunteering at a kindergarten. The early episodes hint that she might not be human - certainly is not one from our place and time - so I expect there is going to be some plot involved at some point.
The one mediating between Kobato and the ones who will fulfill her wish is Iorogi-san, a supernatural being of unknown origin, currently in the form of a stuffed dog. He's voiced by whoever it was that did Kurogane in Tsubasa, and has - believe it or not - an even worse temper. Other recurring characters are Sayaka-sensei (owner of the debt-ridden kindergarten), Fujimoto (works at the kindergarten and lives in the same building as Kobato, looks most likely to end up as The Person Just For Her but with CLAMP it wouldn't surprise me if he ended up with the teacher), and the Mihara family sans He Who Proposed To Misaki's Mom (owns the apartment building, real girls this time).
Other CLAMP cameos so far: The Old Lady of xxxHolic and the one that even Tsubasa forgot: WISH oh my god. No, not just the bunny. There's a sad lack of black wings and Shuichiro's brief appearances made him look even more like the Stoic Clamp Male than he was in the manga, but what the hell. We have canon animated recognition of Kohaku (still an angel, sadly not in chibi form).
There are no transformation sequences and the Mission of the Day format is not as set as it could have been, but the hearts that Kobato heals don't offer any news. Boy is sad because mother works long hours. Old man is mourning the lost love of his youth. Kitten is homeless. Kobato is cute. Someone should write fic about her trading jobs with Subaru and Watanuki.