Manga (Yonkoma) adaption by AIC Classic
Simulcast on Crunchyroll

Premise: Haruka Kotoura has the power to read minds, something which has brought her nothing but grief  and caused her to become lonely and friendless. Transferring to a new school, she meets Yoshihisa Manabe, a curious boy who seems unafraid of her ability.  

Zigg’s Verdict: Of many minds

Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting this. All the preview material we’d seen for Kotoura-san, along with the fact that it’s based on the usually gag oriented 4-koma format, suggested a simple, slightly dumb slice of life show. And that’s what it seems to be…sort of. Truth is, it’s been a little while since a show so utterly confounded my expectations, and that could be both a good or bad thing.  What we’re dealing with here is essentially three different stories crammed into one show – one is a heavy, dark relationship drama, the second is a wacky fanservice comedy and the third is a gentle romance/friendship study.

What this leads to is an experience which is…uneven. The first ten minutes of this opening episode are very sad and brutal, and an impressively powerful punch to the sensibilities of the viewer.  It’s so rough in fact it borders on exploitative tragedy porn, but luckily they reign in a little resulting in a sequence that’s powerful and sincere.  The subsequent transition to wacky dream sequences and Manabe’s dirty fantasies about Haruka can seem a little trite in comparison. But the episode never descends into total farce and remembers to keep its eye on the characters, and as a result the uneven mix of comedy and drama begins to go down a little easier by the end.

The art is equally schizophrenic – the character designs are generic, and clash badly with the aesthetic in the darker scenes (the part where Haruka screams in the rain just looks awful) but there’s also a variety of clever touches and flourishes – the ‘smash’ to credits is a notable example. Even the themes can’t agree with each other, with a bubblegum OP and a soft, lyrical ED. This has the potential to collapse in epic fashion, but for now I’m fascinated to see how they go. Certainly the surprise of the season so far.

Marlin’s Verdict: Rollercoaster Surprise of the Season

I’d started to hear the buzz surrounding this show when I started watching it, but I didn’t get into much of it. I’m really glad I didn’t, as the beginning was an absolute surprise. It’s interesting to see another ESP show talk about the deeper ramifications of the presence of such powers. In From The New World, it was telekinesis’s threat to normal humans and the problems with containing the human mind. Here, we see the problem with someone having the innocence of the child and the knowledge of a mind reader. Without knowing she’s doing anything abnormal, Haruka simply reacts to what she “hears” people say. I was able to predict many of the problems that would come out of this, but it didn’t make it any less heartbreaking.

Unfortunately, this fantastic but oppressively dark tone is immediately washed away with the beginning of the second act, as Kotoura peers into Manabe’s mind to find it… a desert filled with dancing aliens. As Zigg noted, this is where it seems like the start of an entirely new story. Catching the interest of the honest idiot, Haruka just gets pestered into comedy hijinks which leads to a cute power of friendship scene that would make you think the last eleven minutes had been some kind of depressing hallucination. I’m disappointed to see that this seems to be how the show shall continue from here, but this was still a solid stand-alone episode and I’m willing to give it another episode to see if it can keep my attention.

Jel’s Verdict: ESPecially Good

Yes, that is my worst verdict pun yet, DEAL WITH IT. Seriously though, I agree with the other guys this came as a shock considering the description, but I have to disagree as far as the tone of the show. Even with a bit of wacky comedy and fan service sprinkled in, I never felt the episode left Drama mode overall and those elements are just laying the groundwork for the healing process. Of course it’s very likely the show could permanently swing into wacky romantic comedy territory, and as Zigg mentioned there’s nothing particularly special about it production wise. Still, Kotoura-san has definitely earned another episode from me and that’s way more than I expected.

Lifesong’s Verdict: Surprise of the season

There is always one show in any given season that nearly slips under my radar and this season it was Kotoura-san. What I expected to be a silly comedy turned out to be one of the better pieces of drama from this new season. Personally I loved the way the mood progressed through the episode. Just when things couldn’t get any worse for Haruka in entered Manabe. Unlike the rest of the people she has managed to scared away with her mind reading powers hes totally cool with Haruka’s abilities. The biggest worry for Manabe is that she will think him a total pervert. This proved to be a surprisingly dramatic first episode with a cute direction to it at the end. I am not really sure what to expect from Kotoura-san after the first episode but I’m in to find out.