Inari, konkon, koi iroha.

... or how someone took a good idea to the production studio, and the creative team there got all excited about the subject matter, but then in the process of turning it into a ten-part anime, they hit a brick-wall and all their ambitions were brought to a screaming halt. Even Hromino was quite pleased with the first few episodes, pinning his hopes on Inari, and trying to be generous and willingly forgive the production team for some of their lapses in judgment for the sake of a pleasant experience. However, seeing how the episodes progressed, the initially fresh and original anime turned into a chore, and Hromino had to cool himself down with a cold shower, and as he lowered his head rather sadly and he sighed unhappily. Quite naturally, this show shares similarities with another anime, Gingitsune, from the previous year, which was also set in a Shinto shrine setting with a young girl as the main heroine dealing with the supernatural. Gingitsune definitely came out as the better of the two; primarily with more likable, fleshed out and better-utilized characters, more or less balanced quality of episodes, and a nice, relaxed atmosphere. Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha, by contrast, gives me the impression of a kind of unrefined cluelessness and inconsistency on the part of the production team, which seems to be accurately represented by the main heroine’s increasing helplessness as the season unfolds. Visually, the anime is engaging, the soundtrack is passable, the traditional Shinto deities Susano-o no Mikoto, Amaterasu-Ōmikam, and Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami, are depicted in an interesting way, and the first half of the season is really very funny, but the interesting points are then drowned out in the second half of the season, where all we get is a rushed, trite, fairy-tale ending with a few curtailed plot lines, a ton of tropes, and a lot of untapped potentials. Shame, shame, shame. The anime could have definitely turned out better. (13.09.2015)