Anime fans are always ready for cat-girls; it’s just part of the territory. Recently, however, the cats have been devoured by anime’s newest popular rush: anthropomorphic foxes. It seems ever since Naruto emerged, companies have been milking this hairy teat by using more and more fox furries instead of cat-girls.
The fundamental paradox is that there isn’t much of a difference in the final product.
The Kitsune, or fox spirit, has a rich history in Japanese folklore of being wise and powerful tricksters who often fall in love with humans. For this season of anime, two new series have emerged which share the theme of “domestic furry:” Kanokon and Wagaya no Oinarisama. In both series, a girl who is secretly a fox spirit with elemental powers becomes attached to a younger boy and dedicates him/herself to the boy’s protection.
For me, these two series express the duality of a decent series, and a painful series. Kanokon is about a fox-girl whose dream is simply to have sex with a 13?-year-old boy, merge inside his body, and become a more powerful being. There was quite a bit of hate circulating when Kanokon first emerged, and it is quite well deserved. This is a flat series of fan-service, panty shots and themes that make me more uncomfortable than Elfen Lied, and that is explicit child nudity and disembowelment!
On the other hand, Wagaya no Oinarisama has become my cleanser for this season, meaning it’s my average series driven by light humor and a decent fight per episode which wipes my mind clean from the mature and intense series. In it, a venerable fox spirit, nicknamed Kuu, attaches herself to two young brothers who happen to be the target of constant demon harassment. Kuu is wise, unquestionably powerful and selfish, and ignorant of the modern world. Episode three, for example, sends Kuu wandering through and dominating the male students of a high school, which was pretty funny. Another interesting spin is that Kuu’s human form swaps genders, thus confusing all archetypes I use to judge characters. Nothing spectacular, but Wagaya non Oinarisama is a fun, easy-to-watch series that I recommend using to introduce friends into new anime.
Nevertheless, I will point out, for those of us grieving the loss of our calico cuties, the foxes are not fundamentally different from cat-girls. Either case, you have an immature, sexually charged “cute” girl who invades a passive, young boy’s life. And, if I may point out, Spice and Wolf didn’t change the character type at all because the wolf ears looked exactly the same as a cat’s.
Cat-girls, fox-girls, oh my. Y’know what I’m waiting for? Bear-girls! Why bother with cute and risqué when you can be destructive and over-bearing?
~Yo out.
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