Kurokami – Episode 1

The new winter anime season has started and so far five new shows have started – or at least that’s the number of shows I’ve yet decided check out. The first contender for 2009 is Kurokami, or Black God, based on the korean manga (yes, not “manhwa”) by Dall-Young Lim and Sung-Woo Park, who, funnily but totally irrelevant, made his debut the year I was born, 1993.

The first episode starts with the main character in a puddle of blood. Why?

As always, I suck at making reviews on anything, really, so I’ll try to keep this short; maybe it will make a little sense. The first episode of Kurokami begins with Keita Ibuki (伊吹慶太, Ibuki Keita) riding his bike through the part of Japan where he lives- no wait, that’s not the beginning. Sorry, have been fixing some other stuff since I watched the episode… Anyway, the first episode of Kurokami starts out with Keita Ibuki lying dead on the ground, blood filling the canvas that is the ground his dead body lies on. This may sound like a spoiler, what I just said, but since it is the absolute first thing that happens you were going to find out about it as soon as you watched the episode yourself and can’t really be considered a huge spoiler. After we see Keita’s dead body and (supposedly) his blood  on the ground we get to see the girl that later introduces herself as “Kuro” (meaning “black” in Japanese), fleeing from some unidentified men in black costumes, followed by a woman with long orange hair riding the train. She is talking on the phone with Keita and to not make this a complete summary of exactly everything that happens in this episode I will stop talking right now.

It's Kuro!

I must say, this review seems to being going quite OK, at least for being one of my reviews. Maybe? Anyway, when I first started watching this episode I thought that maybe it wasn’t the same Kurokami that I had recently read the first chapter of the manga of, but something else with the same name, since, the way I recall the first manga chapter, the manga and anime weren’t even the slightest bit alike – until Keita meets Kuro and Punipuni at the ramen stand. Then I was sure it was the same story I had read earlier in an issue of Yen Plus. I have to get the manga, because everything points at this being a great manga – even though it’s created by Korean authors. Not that it’s anything wrong with that, just that Korean authors more often make “manhwa” than manga, and those two are definitely not the same thing. Man, I can’t focus on less than twenty-eight things at once… I don’t think there is much more I can write now, though, without simply giving away everything that happens in the episode, and that’s not what I’m writing this for, so I’ll just add another picture and then a gallery with pictures from the episode, if you’re interested. Oh yeah, this is definitely one of the shows from the early anime season of 2009 you have to check out!

Aaaaargh!!

What’s going on?

Hey guys!

Look at this.

Now go away!

Could you buy me a Calpis, Keita-kun?

Oh, I see, so you’re ignoring me too, huh!?

An arcade? That’s original!

Did you just… try to run over me in your game? Why do you guys hate me so much! ;_;

Whoa, an epic moment!? :O

Aaaaargh!!

……..

That’s the end of Kurokami episode 1. :D

Just get it off the internet…

I should get myself a Calpis, if you won’t. Be right back!~

The first episode starts with the main character in a puddle of blood. Why?

When’s the new Jump coming out?

Oh hi, whatever your name was.

Don’t eat out of the trash, Pavlov!

Unfinished bridge ahead!~

This isn’t really interesting, is it?

See? I told you the bridge was unfinished…

Yeah, it’s still unfinished…

At least the lights work, though.

Aren’t they pretty? :3

The whole episode is a long introduction of a Japanese little town?

OK, enough of the lights!

Doppleganger? Doppeliner? Mototsumitama? Jelly-jam?

……..

Is that…?

……..

Let’s all go to the lo–Tokyo~

Where is the hotdog guy?

“Do you have a sister?”

Going down the hill.

You seem awfully happy for no apparent reason. Do you have a reason?

“Mom, is that you’re twin sister?”

“I don’t have a…”

“…twin…?”

“Mom…?”

It’s time to wake up, Keita-kun…

Still going down the hill.

WAKE UP, DAMMIT!!

Nice room. You live alone?

No one unbuttons their shirt on a locker door by accident. This is so… unreal.

It’s starting to rain. Wonderful!

Practicing baseball swings out in the rain, are you?

Wait… who are you?

Here she comes!

Waiting for the train. How entertaining to watch.

Still waiting? Even more interesting to watch!

You realize you’re boring the viewers just now?

Kuro and Punipuni are so cute, both of them! :3

“I want ramen!”

“……..”

“It isn’t enough!?”

*drool*

It’s Kuro!

……..

……..?

Aww, isn’t that nice, treating the cute girl you don’t even know. :)

You’re up to something, aren’t you, Keita?

What did you do to that car, Kuro?

“Hey, that’s my meat!”

OK, quite alot happened between the previous pic and this one…

You go, Punipuni!!

Ignoring me, are you!?

Fight, Kuro!

I have absolutely no idea who this dude really is, but he’s not a good guy. I guess…