Kyouran Kazoku Nikki

Information of Anime

Thousand of years ago, the God of Destruction Enka died.  Before dying, he had children spread around the world that would destroy Earth.  To stop this, a project called Operation Cozy Family was created by the Paranormal Phenomena department with its employee Oka Midarezaki being the father. Oka didn't know about the project & gets married to Kyoka who is half cat & half human.  By gathering all the potential children of Enka, the two will act like their parents & hope to find the true child of Enka.  The teaching & importance of family is to be implied to stop the Enka child from destroying the world.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Although Oka doesn't want to take part of this project (or Frenzy Family that Kyoka calls it), he is faced with a lot of strange family members as his kids.  He's even got a lion, jellyfish, & a robot as his kids.  Although they carry some genes of Enka, it's not known which one of them is the true child.  Even though he's forced into marriage, he slowly begins to accept the role of being a father figure as he corrects his ways along the way with the strange help of Kyoka.  The whole family would get into some bizarre adventures thanks to Kyoka.

Although most of the show doesn't link to one another, there are arcs that show some of the Enka children's backgrounds.  What all of them have in common is the hardships they experience before joining the Cozy Famiy project.  Aside from the kids, we get bits from Kyoka & Oka's pasts as well.  However, the show would continue the short stories with some that doesn't relate to the family.  It basically includes new characters that would appear in the later episodes such as the return of the Paranormal Phenomena head Raicho Hiratsuka who is considered to be very dangerous.

After the introduction of Raicho, the family adventures to the end with Gekka's story being the last arc.  The story ends with a happy family with the project still underway as the identity of the Child of Enka is still unknown.

My Personal Review

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki was something that I randomly picked up.  I had no idea what it was about as the name doesn't ring a bell.  Watching it, it was something that I wasn't expecting.

Animation

The character designs look like pretty flat & weird.  The faces aren't even or smooth.  It's rigidity & out of proportions.  Despite that, it fits this wacky anime show well.

The backgrounds don't have a lot of details, but give the impression of the type of anime show you are watching.  Although some of the backgrounds are impressive, most of it are simple.

For the colours, it's pretty bright & bold.  Some of the panel lines are quite thick & really stand out.  Even though the colours are pretty bright, they blend well with the characters & background.

In terms of the animation movement, it's a mixture of real & comic.  Most of the time is comic.  There are some parts where the animation are hard or sudden.  It's like missing some frames in-between.

Sound

The sound effects are heavily on the comic side.  The sounds are projected nicely & on cue most of the time.

The seiyuus here aren't too bad.  But I don't really like most of them.  They perform their roles well but there isn't one that I like.  For me, I didn't like Kyoka's voice much.  Although it fits the character well, it could be that I don't really like the character much that reflecting this negative remark.

The music is mainly on the rock pop side.  Heavy stuff if you will.  There are some cute ones as well & all of them fit the show's image well. 

Story

Mainly Oka & Kyoka running Operation Cozy Family & finding out which of "their" five children is the true child of Enka.  Although the purpose is to educate the importance of family to Enka's child, it's still applied to all the strange kids.  It may not look like it, but there is clearly character development here which is mainly on Oka moving to a father figure & husband.

The show does display the Family Frenzy being close to one another as they support & help each other out from any problems they faced.  Whether it be from the present or past, they will work together.  Later on, the show would move away from this just to introduce some new characters.  They can be viewed as fillers, but somehow these characters would appear later.

Most of the show is arcs of each of the family members right to the end.  Although there is no solid storyline for the whole show, it does present a theme of family.  I personally didn't think it would take that theme seriously as the show is a wacky roller coaster.

Overall Conclusion

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki is a wacky anime show of family.  But it seems to be a bit too over the top for me personally.  However, it's actually a surprise on how good it presents its theme.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki gets an seven out of ten.  It's a non-down-to Earth comedy anime that's got some descent storylines for each of its arcs.  Even though the approach is kind of weird, the show actually makes good use of the theme of family.

Last updated on November 24, 2008